By: Tomide Marv
If you call Victor “Valjae” Adekunle Ladejobi an obscure artist, you may be right — but you won’t be wrong to say he puts his art at the forefront, as his first identity, before anything else. His music releases pace each other out, effect of long-drawn out creative process and inspired real-life events. But he’s intentional, he puts out music only when he has something to say.
Primarily an Afropop artist, but Valjae can be genre-fluid. He taps into both singing and rapping which he’s been doing since he released his first studio-recorded song in 2014. As a new generation Nigerian contemporary pop act inspired by the likes of Fela Kuti, Burna Boy, M.I. Abaga, etc., Valjae centres mostly on his immediate environment, good time, romance and urban love.
His new single “Balance”, opens with a solemn hum, setting a confessional mood for a lover. Right on the thump of the first drum, Valjae lands his intimate desire. First, he hails his love interest’s body endowment, acknowledging that her physical and presence bring stability to him, his love life. Perhaps, the two of them would wake up every morning beside each other — he hopes that their hearts align. But sweet and simple as it sounds, complication enters it. The lady already has a man. Despite knowing this, Valjae remains persistent, keeping alive the hope that their chemistry would soon become permanent. Perhaps a fool’s wish, but love is blind.
The song’s production is a jam of smooth chords and bouncy drums that put the listener’s neck in rhythmic jerks. Party-popping as the beat may be, it gives Valjae enough pocket to muse about romantic notions. Its trilingual lyricism (English, Yoruba and Pidgin English) draws from Valjae’s love life and personal experience.
With each line in the chorus, it’s apparent how hard cupid has struck him. He fondly reminisces about their meet-ups and glees about taking her photograph—something he could hold on to until their commitment holds to each other alone. “Oni n ya photo / I took more than a selfie, ‘cause the body make me selfish.”
In the second verse, he gets desperate. Rather than a passionate toaster, Valjae sounds like a jealous side-kick who wants more than a booty-call. He tells the babe that she deserves a present lover, him, rather than her man who puts his friends above her and her time.
Valjae has affection for his love interest. He makes a show of that, but a feet-sweeping love confession would need more vim from him. That’s to say, Valjae may have an ambitious love dream, but the premise of “Balance” is purely an intimate desire. What she can offer him is less, but he keeps looking for love in an uncertain place.