“There have been samples here and there, things like Drake and Wizkid collaborating ,” says Guilty Beatz, the Ghanian producer who worked on three different tracks from The Gift. Īrtists and producers involved in the album believe it will be a major boost for their international footprint - especially in America, the world’s biggest music market, which has been far less welcoming to African artists than the U.K. Beyonc é also looked beyond Nigeria as well, recruiting Shatta Wale (Ghana), Salatiel ( Cameroon), Moonchild Sanelly (South Africa), and Busiswa (also South Africa) to contribute to The Gift. Alade is joined by other Nigerian luminaries: Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage, Tekno, Mr. As a result, she appears twice on Beyonc é ‘s The Lion King: The Gift, which is both a companion album to accompany the release of a new version of Disney’s famous film from 1994 and a tribute to several strains of contemporary African pop from one of the United States’ biggest stars. When Alade hit the studio the next morning, “the excitement awoke my voice” - she could sing. I felt like an herbalist, I was going in on everything.” “I went for a steaming so I could get more moisture,” Alade recalls. Panicked, she immediately went into full recovery mode. “I could talk, but I couldn’t even hit the lowest key.” “I couldn’t understand what had happened to me,” she says. But when Alade landed, she discovered she no longer had a singing voice. Last month, the Nigerian star, who recently passed the one-million-subscribers mark on YouTube, flew to Los Angeles to work on a project by Beyonc é.

The lion king the gift