On The Manager's Playbook podcast, Asa Asika pointed to the Afrobeats star's unmatched social reach and the brands lining up to work with him.
Asa Asika doesn't need much convincing about who runs Nigerian entertainment. Davido's manager went on The Manager's Playbook and made a bold call about his 33-year-old client.
"Davido is probably the most influential person from Nigeria below the age of 40, in my opinion," Asika told host Mauricio Ruiz.
His measure came down to the numbers. "Let's use the most popular metric, which is social media. David is probably the most followed artiste on almost every platform."
That reach has become a running joke between the two of them. "I tell him, 'You're kind of president of Nigeria.' And he says, 'Leave me alone.'"
It isn't only online, Asika argued. He called Davido "a walking billboard," with brands reaching out just to have him attached to their products. "I have messages from brands that just want David to hold their product. I haven't paid for a music video with our own money in ages."
Asika, who co-founded The Plug Entertainment, also pointed to Davido's knack for absorbing scandals that would sink other artists. "Something I would see what David do and I would be like, if someone else did this, they would never ever get back from this," he said.
The global reach isn't new. Davido was billed to perform at the 2022 World Cup final, and he has said before that he never took a dime from his DMW artists. The full episode, titled Revealing What Made Davido A Global Star, is on the podcast's YouTube channel.
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