Yemi Alade, in Full Bloom

Growing up in Nigeria, moving around the country, living wherever her late police commissioner father was stationed, Yemi Alade found she always had a lot of questions about her life. Questions that no one could answer. Questions that felt like they would never get answered. When she started making music, the list of them only grew longer. “The industry is very fickle,” she tells OkayAfrica, on a break during our latest digital cover shoot. “And unfortunately, if you ask the wrong person the right questions, you get the wrong answers.”

So Alade, the fifth of seven children, started to listen to the words of her mother, and began sending her questions higher up. “She told me to always try my best to renew my relationship with God,” she recalls. “So, I take those questions to God. And I still look out for my answers.”

Alade was seeking such an answer when her Grammy nomination for Best African Music Performance came through in November last year. Even after 15 years in the music industry, with millions of fans, a vibrant touring schedule, seven albums and dozens of awards under her belt, she felt unsure of her path ahead. “The day that the nomination was announced, I cried my eyes out,” she says. “They were tears of joy and pain. It came at the right time for me. I had just asked God to tell me what to do. I needed clarity. And there you go: a response from the Universe.”

To be sure, Alade, a superstar in her own right, has never needed an award or honor to mark her presence, but the moment remains a pivotal one. In the past, she’s been close to Grammy glory by proxy, thanks to her work with Angélique Kidjo and Beyoncé, but this is the first time the Recording Academy has recognized Alade for her own song, the amapiano-tinged “Tomorrow.” And it’s come on her own terms. “I'm not signed to a Western label; I'm signed to an indie label,” she says. “The song doesn't have any international collaboration on there. And a lot of people do not believe that being culturally in sync with your culture can still take you global.”

And yet, it has. As her 36th birthday approaches, Alade has spent the past two months processing the news. “It's significant, not just to me and my career, but to every African child out there. And anybody who can even just tap into the dream of making something from nothing.” It’s a feat that punctuates a critics-defying career and proves the lasting popularity of the West African musical phenomenon she helped pioneer.

Born to a Yoruba father and an Igbo mother, Yemi Alade has always been a bit of a cultural hybrid. As a child, she was recruited into the adult choir because of her “big voice.” While she always loved performing, the decision to take music seriously came later, during university. Right from then, it was clear that she would have to convince the world she had what it took to make it. “Oh my days! I remember performing on stage the first time in university,” she reflects amid laughter, on a phone call before the OkayAfrica digital cover shoot. “I was singing my slow, sweet songs, as per usual, when somebody started booing and then everyone else started to boo. I was so confused, I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but it was terrible for me. That almost broke me.”

It was the first of many times Alade would have to bend in order not to break. Her ascent to stardom occurred within a vital context: as Afrobeats‘ presence crystallized on the world stage and the genre‘s most established musicians captured international recognition. Coming up alongside names like Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy, her career milestones are just as historic as the male artists with whom she pioneered this movement. In 2013, she burst onto the scene with "Johnny," a now-classic tune that gained global acclaim and made her the first Nigerian female artist to hit 100 million views on YouTube. It was the second Nigerian music video to reach this milestone following Davido’s “Fall” a year earlier and, as with most of her accomplishments, she attained this feat without any major label backing – unlike Davido, who inked his first multi-million dollar record deal in 2016.

In the beginning, Alade took note of the critics who derided her music for having vapid lyrics. She’d call out the hypocrisy of her naysayers pointing the proverbial righteous finger at her instead of scrutinizing the equally superficial lyrics of her male counterparts. “I know a lot of people that have folded under that kind of pressure. There's nothing normal about having the world discuss your art and your personal life. Having the world in your face, it's very easy to feel like everyone's against you,” she tells OkayAfrica. The heightened scrutiny served as the perfect opportunity for the artist to only dig in further, to make her music and lyrics more experimental and profound.

In the early years, she relied on doing what made her happy – forgoing fads and embracing culture. “Throughout my entire career, I have continued to live above the rules of this industry by just being myself and doing my thing the way I feel is right within me,” she explains. “I don't believe in making my life, my creativity, all about trends,” she says. “My purpose on earth is to create, not to follow what has been done. Believability, originality and standing in my truth are the things that have kept me going.”

As one of Afrobeats’ first female stars, Alade circumvented traditional industry and societal constraints by routinely defying expectations and transforming the way we see women in Africa’s pop landscape. “Despite what the entire world wanted from me, which is, to dress more Western, to sing more R&B only and forget what Afrobeats is, to look a certain way, talk a certain way, I stood my ground," she says. "It was difficult – very difficult – because it is the path that isn't traveled a lot.”

She is situated at the intersection of Afrobeats’ evolution in sound and representation; knowing how to navigate that dissonance is part of her artistic superpower. We can look towards artists like Tems, Ayra Starr, Tyla, Gyakie, and other women who are at the forefront of a new guard. It’s the next era for the genre, and Alade laid out the formula – that alone is worth more than any golden statue. “It was different back [when I started out]. People didn’t expect me to stick around,” she says. Now, way more African women are finding recognition and staying power in mainstream music – “I just love to see it,” she adds proudly.

Throughout her career, Alade has continued to take creative risks that vault her further into uncharted territory. For Alade, Afrobeats thrives on fusionism and her forays into genres such as Highlife (“Chairman”), Azonto (“Koffi Anan”), Amapiano (“Amazing Grace”), reggae ("Peace and Love"), Gengetone (“Kissing Remix”), and gospel (“Na Gode”) have furthered the genre’s sonic expansion.

Her signature sound is powerful and feminine, interweaving English, Yoruba, Igbo, French and Swahili into rhythmic songs about love, faith, politics, and the patriarchy. Tracks like the Grammy-nominated “Tomorrow,” a hopeful anthem (“In my soul I am waiting on the prophesy / I know, I know it's coming soon”) off her most recent album, Rebel Queen, or “Baddie,” where she flips the Afrobeats script on its head, have launched Alade into a stratosphere of artistry not often seen by her contemporaries. Her list of accolades is long: two consecutive MTV African Music Awards and two features on Beyoncé’s 2019 Afrobeats-inspired album The Gift, among them.

Despite being one of Africa’s most celebrated artists, the singer still feels like her achievements are often undermined by powerful industry players. In 2024, she revealed that the popular Nigerian radio station Cool FM had blacklisted her after she didn’t attend one of their events. This kind of chastisement would be unimaginable towards a male musician at his prime. Speaking to Grammy.com, Alade said of the double standard: “In a male-dominated society, it seems as though my male counterparts get their roses and their flowers [...] and once in a while someone comes back and remembers, ‘Oh, there's Yemi Alade.’"

While she may take note of these discrepancies, in a break from the past, the singer no longer grapples for understanding and validation from outside herself. “If the world is coming down on me, making accusations, throwing their opinions in my face, I'll ask myself this question: is it true? And if it is not true, then I do not care.” The critics and public dissections, just like the acclaim and co-signs, are simply a part of the trade. Everything reinforces and clarifies her mission.

Alade continues to draw from what she knows is best for her creativity; soaking up the different languages, customs and traditions from the places she visits. “As I travel the world, I immerse myself in every culture of the country I'm in -- their food, the way they dress, the colors that they love the most, the fabrics that they're into, especially their accessories," she says. "And I'm inspired. I know what next to do."

Next is the Grammys. For years, Alade never submitted her work for consideration. But it only led to more questions. Not from herself, but from her mother. “For over four or five years, my mom has asked me every year, ‘Where is my Grammy? Where is my Grammy?’ The answer may just come soon enough.

Photographer: Marquis Perkins @marquisperkins

Stylist: Arnold Milfort @arnoldmilfort

Hair team: Hair by Susy @hairbysusy

Lead hair stylist: Kathy Clarke @iamqueensarah7

Hair assistant: Theliah Hutson @theliahstouch

Lighting tech: J Pierre Bonnet @jpierrebonnet

Photography assistant: Sarah Schneider @SarahbSchneider

Makeup: Brittany Whitfield @brittywhitfield