The 42-year-old Nigeria Waje, has given us yet another soulful body of work to listen to, The Misfit. Before now, her last release had been a gospel album Unbroken, and Waje 2.0. It is clear the singer is here to reaffirm her position as one of the most powerful vocalists in Nigeria.
With her December 30th release, The Misfit makes it the fifth studio album released throughout her career. Let’s dive into a review of the album and see what we think!
Opening Songs From Waje on the Misfit
The album opens up with an Ice Prince feature on Bigger. Waje reminds us of her sonic prowess with this track, and Ice Prince gives off his big rapper energy as expected. I think the feature was great and I understand why it was the first song on the album. It sort of jolts you awake in a pleasant way. Although I must say, the song gave me mixed feelings. I loved everything about it but I felt like there was something a little off about the arrangement.
Never Stop features Passi. As someone who recently became a huge fan of French songs, this feature pleasantly surprised me. Featuring a first-generation francophone hip-hop artist was definitely an interesting move from Waje on that I applaud. It’s a really short song though, just two minutes and thirty seconds. So, it did make me feel like it ended just when I was starting to warm up to it.
Not Waiting, the third song off The Misfit is certainly an interesting song to listen to. It had enough pronounced elements of electronic percussion that make it sound like an EDM song in the works. I personally liked this one, it sounds like feel-good dance music that you’d just want to enjoy in the moment. I also found it interesting that Waje was edging towards this sort of dance music, because it’s not what we’re used to.
Straight from EDM to Afrobeats at its finest, Waje gives us a nice laid-back performance on Lockup. This song had prominent drums with the steady cadences observed in a lot of Afrobeats songs in recent times. It could’ve been even better with a Santi feature… Or am I getting ahead of myself here?
tracklist for waje
Try Me is not too different from Tems’ hit song in the sense that Waje is basically urging the doubters to try her, put their money on her, and watch her thrive. (No, I’m certainly not trying to compare the two singers, I don’t want that heat today.) I think it’s a good song though, but it ended just as I was starting to get a good feel of it.
Can I just take this time out to appreciate Waje’s range and how well she balanced different genres on this album? Miss You Crazy is another Afrobeats classic song, but with a lot of highlife infusions in the instrumentals. Her performance on this song certainly leaned more towards contemporary Afrobeats than Highlife as the beat suggests, and I would’ve preferred the latter.
album body
The next song on Waje’s The Misfit is What I Want. Waje gives us a cute lover-girl song with this one. It’s a song that paints a picture of two lovers exchanging their desires in terms of what I assume to be love languages. On second thought, this would’ve been great as a Tiwa Savage and Waje collaboration. What do you think?
Show Me Something features Josey who delivers the second French verse on this album. The chorus’ witty lyrics did not distract me from the overall feel the song gave me – feel-good music best enjoyed on days you want to… well, feel good.
A Waje and D’Banj feature? Who would’ve ever thought we’d get such a good combination on this abum from Waje, The Misfit. Oroma is an upbeat song that talks about spending money and swiping cards to enjoy a much-needed party night out.
Controller presents Waje as a tired lover trying to get free from her controlling lover’s grasp with each passing time. The most surprising elements of this song were the amapiano log drums subtly infused at prominent parts. I liked the songwriting and the call-and-response chorus, it was easily one of my favorite songs on the album. The last two songs on The Misfit are Carry For Head and Aje, which both reminded me of early 2010s Waje.
final thoughts on the misfit
As I’m sure you might’ve guessed by now, I thought the album lacked a solid number of features. My final thoughts on Waje’s new album, The Misfit are also generally centered on the name choice. Could it be because most of the songs might’ve sounded better as singles, and probably did not fit into a cohesive flow as an album but she decided to put it out as an album anyway? Or does it have more to do with the versatile writing and performances she delivered on it?
Let us know what you think!