{"id":655061,"date":"2026-05-07T07:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655061\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:48:09","slug":"asake-mney-album-review-pitchfork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655061\/","title":{"rendered":"Asake: M$NEY Album Review | Pitchfork"},"content":{"rendered":"

After three years under Olamide\u2019s<\/a> YBNL Nation, the label that catapulted Asake<\/a> into global stardom, the Nigerian pop star declined to renew his contract and founded his own independent label, Giran Republic. The timing felt right for a reinvention. 2023\u2019s Work of Art<\/a> didn\u2019t shift dramatically away from the Afrofusion blueprint of his debut, and by his third record, 2024\u2019s Lungu Boy<\/a>, the stylistic monotony was becoming noticeable. Too often, it felt like he was piling on collaborations and genre experiments out of obligation. His latest album, M$NEY, was supposed to be the one that Asake made just for himself. Instead, it\u2019s his most generic project yet.<\/p>\n

Asake stays cautious, opting for a come-one, come-all approach. This perspective influences every element of the record. Asake\u2019s Fuji-tinged Afropiano sound is intact, but it has been aerated into a jazz-soaked haze with smoky brass, twinkling keys, and flute trills flickering around the edges. Clubby tracks like \u201cRora\u201d and \u201cOba\u201d seem better suited for an Ibiza day party than a Lagos dancefloor. It\u2019s an easy, breezy listen, but ease has rarely been Asake\u2019s selling point. It was the friction: the street-coded lyricism that danced between Yoruba aphorisms, Nigerian Pidgin, and English; the rhythmic restlessness that kept you slightly off-balance, never quite sure where a track was heading. On M$NEY, his lyrics are one-dimensional, and most tracks clock in under three minutes, which is just long enough to establish an ambiance but not long enough to complicate it. It\u2019s a beautiful locale, but without the dynamism and grit of his past work, you\u2019ll find yourself ready to check out long before the final track.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Asake has always incorporated religion into his braggadocious songwriting, but this time it\u2019s center stage. The Soweto Spiritual Singers, a South African gospel choir, arrive before Asake does on the 13-track album, framing M$NEY as a project bigger than its creator. Asake follows their lead, never once stepping outside the church doors. He invites a select few into his service\u2014DJ Snake<\/a>, Tiakola, and Kabza De Small\u2014but their presence is too modest to break the album\u2019s reverence. Tracks like \u201cWORSHIP,\u201d \u201cGratitude,\u201d and \u201cForgiveness\u201d are as literal as their titles suggest.<\/p>\n

Asake has never been a confessional lyricist, but he excels at evoking a collective feeling; on the Grammy-nominated \u201cAmapiano<\/a>,\u201d he engineered a high-voltage euphoria that transcended genre and geography. Yet with something as intimate as religion, the broad strokes here feel evasive: a noncommittal attempt to find spiritual common ground. Though Asake is Muslim, he draws on both Islamic and Christian vocabularies: \u201cAlhamdulillah\u201d and \u201cAllah\u201d on one track, \u201cJesus Christ the Lord\u201d and \u201choly father\u201d on another, \u201cAmen\u201d and \u201cAmin\u201d in the same breath. The context around this choice matters. His 2024 \u201cOnly Me<\/a>\u201d music video, which showed Asake throwing money while wearing Christian regalia, drew accusations<\/a> of blasphemy from his fans. I wouldn\u2019t say M$NEY is a direct response to that backlash, but it does feel flat compared to his earlier work. After all, there\u2019s probably more money to be made when you\u2019re understood, accepted, and uncontroversial by everyone.<\/p>\n

In Islamic thought, wealth is understood as a trust from God, to be handled with care and never mistaken for proof of divine endorsement. But Asake never engages with the tension of being \u201cMr. Money With the Vibe<\/a>\u201d in a culture that views abundance as a moral test. The closest he comes is a brief manifestation of generational wealth and a muttering that \u201cmoney can\u2019t buy you happiness,\u201d which aims for revelation but comes off more like a shrug. The album hovers far from the city soundscapes that have kept Asake\u2019s discography grounded, and while it\u2019s a pleasant listen, it feels more curated than lived-in. Asake is finally his own boss, and he has the freedom to do whatever he wants. But on M$NEY, all he wants is to play it safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three years under Olamide\u2019s YBNL Nation, the label that catapulted Asake into global stardom, the Nigerian pop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[12327,64,63,134,136,1672],"class_list":["post-655061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}