JOEBOY is a celebrity way too familiar to Nigerian music fans, particularly the touted generation Z. The talented songster has become an iconic name amongst Nigerian music artistes for the past half decade now. Joeboy has endeared himself to the teeming young and middle-aged folks in Nigeria. Even beyond the borders of the country, he is quite popular.
With his very appealing voice and carefully blended songs that could make many a music critic’s heart to melt. Good vocals, few curse words, good blend of backup voices and instruments, and video production ideas. His music generally revolves around romantic themes, which does not have an overtly negative influence on his listeners. He is obviously talented. But who is JOEBOY?
Joeboy: His Origins
Joseph Akinwale Akinfenwa-Donus (whose stage name is Joeboy) is a singer and songwriter from the Yoruba tribe. Born in the year 1997 in Lagos, Joseph was born into a family of music lovers. Both his father and brother were active in church. Both he and his older brother were members of the church choir; and his father played the keyboard.
Joeboy’s entire schooling took place in Lagos as well. He graduated from the University of Lagos in 2011 with a degree in Human Resource Management. His passion for music ultimately made him lay aside his degree.
Right from a young age, he created and rehearsed his own songs. He was mightily influenced by the music style of artistes ID Cabasa and 9ice at that time. Joeboy was able to release his first-ever song titled ‘Gbese’ at seventeen years old.
Joeboy’s Music Career: The Beginnings
In an attempt to gain more followers on Instagram, Joeboy gave a rendition of popular British singer Ed Sheeran’s song ‘The Shape of You’ in 2017. The Instagram post garnered so much popularity and followership far and wide (even beyond Nigeria) due to his appealing voice. One of those followers happened to be Mr. Eazi (Oluwatosin Ajibade), the owner of emPawa Records label. Mr Eazi himself had become a big-time music artist in the country. That very Instagram post was an entry into enPawa 100, a music grant sponsored by emPawa Records. It was to the tune of 300 US Dollars (which he obviously won).
From the proceeds of the win, Joeboy collaborated with Mr. Eazi to produce the song ‘Faaji’, along with a music video, in 2018. He entered into a record deal with emPawa Records that launched his career and since then, there has been no turning back.
Joeboy launched his own record label namely Young Legend in 2024. He is currently signed up with Warner Music Africa, in partnership with his Young Legend record label.
Joeboy: The Breakthrough
Joeboy released his first and second singles, ‘Baby’ and ‘Beginning’, in March and August of the year 2019 respectively. This turned out to be his breakthrough year. The song ‘Baby’ was reportedly streamed by 20 million users on both Spotify and YouTube channels. About 31 million users thereabout viewed the music video of ‘Baby’. While 23 million users viewed the music video of ‘Beginning’ on YouTube that same year. He also released his debut Extended Playlist (EP) ‘Love and Light’ in November 2019.
The young artiste went ahead to clinch the 2019 Best Artiste in African Pop award at the African Music Awards of that year. The following year in 2020, he won the Soundcity MVP Awards for Best Pop song. Joeboy was also nominated for several other awards at the City People Entertainment Awards and The Headies, between 2020 and 2021.
Joeboy released an album titled ‘Somewhere Between Beauty and Magic’ in February 2021. He also succeeded in releasing other Extended Playlists. He went further to release the music album ‘Body and Soul’; and an Extended Playlist tagged ‘Body, Soul & Spirit‘ in 2023.
At the start of 2024, Joeboy announced that he had parted ways with emPawa Records to set up his own record label, Young Legend. His latest project under the new arrangement is a hit single titled ‘Osadebe‘, released in February 2024.
His style and genre of music is a blend of afrobeat, afropop, and R & B.
The Top 10 Joeboy Songs of All Time
Joeboy has released over forty singles so far. He has also collaborated with a couple of well-known music stars home and abroad, including Brainee, CKay, Solana, Blaqbonez, Mr. Eazi, DJ Voyst, DJ Neptune, Zuchu, Kuami Eugene, Majeed, and Laycon. Some of his most-loved songs of all time includes the following:
- Baby
- Faaji
- Beginning
- All of You
- Call
- Contour
- Don’t Call Me Back ( featuring Mayorkun)
- Nobody (featuring DJ Neptune & Laycon)
- Sip (Alcohol)
- Lonely
Joeboy: His Private Life
Quite uncharacteristic of a lot of celebrities but nonetheless impressive, Joeboy has carefully kept his personal life away from the curious public. However, it is rumored that he is in a relationship with an undisclosed lady.
Joeboy Versus Asa: The Controversy
The publicized case of Asa versus Joeboy in a 300 million Naira lawsuit bordering on copyright infringement shook the fanbase of both artistes. World-acclaimed singer Bukola Elemide (based in France) – whose stage name is Asa – slammed Joeboy with the lawsuit. This happened just one month after the release of Joeboy’s 2022 single ‘Contour’. The claim was that Asa recorded a ‘musical composition’ on 22nd of September 2022 with the producer of the song ‘Contour’ in attendance. That happened to be Tempoe. Apparently, Tempoe worked on the song for Asa, who ended up not using the beats. And so it was Joeboy who finally used it.
Joeboy went ahead to expose the legal notice on his Instagram page. And he challenged Asa to take action as she had purported, within 24 hours. The said lawsuit was a follow-up from a previous court action taken by Tempoe against Asa, earlier the same year.
Tempoe had also sued Asa for copyright infringement over songs in the ‘V’ album. Asa had the song ‘Love Me or Give Me Red Wine’ subsequently removed from the album. The stated song featured Wizkid and another artiste from the reports. Both Tempoe and Asa could not agree on the deal, as the latter could not pay the quoted amount to produce the album.
Asa purportedly went to P.prime records to produce the songs with the same beats created by Tempoe. Tempoe sued Asa in return and won the lawsuit; he also had the same songs pulled down.
