Chukwuka Ekweani, better known by his stage name Ckay, had always been the guy that can sing. It didn’t make much sense to him till the day he and a group of his friends organised a concert in Kaduna and sold all their tickets. That was the breakthrough he needed to change location and hop down to Lagos.
“So I saved money for a period of 9 months and one day, I just left home. My parents never really supported my dreams, even after countless conversations I had with them, trying to convince them of how viable music is as an occupation. So, I just left. I figured they’d eventually forgive me when they saw results. They fully support and believe in me now,” he admitted in an interview.
Ckay drew his musical inspiration from his father’s teachings with piano and FruityLoops, a music software. These experiences gave him a boost when he touched down Lagos. His rise in music began as a producer with Loopy Music before joining Chocolate City Music finally.
At Chocolate, Ckay was part of the production of tracks like “Third Mainland Bridge” (MI x Moti Cakes), “The Box” (MI x Pryse), and “Give Them” (Koker). He then went on to release Who the Fuck Is CKay? an Extended Play (EP), on September 11, 2017. His career trajectory experienced a meteoric rise with Container in 2018 and in 2019 the much acclaimed second EP, CKay the First was released in August 2019 through Chocolate City. “Love Nwantiti” was one of the major projects on the album.
However, it was the remix of “Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah)” featuring Joeboy and Kuami Eugene off the Boyfriend EP in 2020 that changed Ckay’s story and brought billions of streams globally.
Commenting on the production, the singer said, “Love Nwantiti was a freestyle. I didn’t pen a single word. I was in my living room, making beats like I usually do, and I played the chords, built on them, and did my freestyle. I recorded around midnight and I was really sleepy, so I decided I was gonna put words to the ‘ah ah ah‘ part in the morning. Long story short, woke up in the morning and realized it was fire exactly how it was.”
In 2021, the song grew wide popularity across Europe, Australia, Latin America, and New Zealand, reaching number one in Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, and gaining a foothold on TikTok.
Ckay did not know it would generate wide acclaim again until a friend sent him his song being used in a TikTok challenge last September.
“So I didn’t expect it to blow up all over again. Thankfully, I was wrong. She showed it to me again two days later and it had gone completely viral,” he said.
It peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and reached number one on the UK Indie Singles Chart. It also reached No. 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Global 200 and appeared on the Canadian Hot 100.
Bloomberg named the song the biggest-ever hit out of Africa. According to the firm, the track is the first song from Africa to top YouTube’s list of the most-watched music videos. A North African remix featuring ElGrande Toto grew the song’s popularity alongside the Spanish version with De La Ghetto, the East African remix featuring Rayvanny, and a South African remix featuring Tshego and Gemini Major.
A dance routine created by popular TikToker Tracy Joseph, as well as a slow remix with DJ Yo and Axel, brought the song all the popularity it could get. At one point, users were generating 10 million videos a week using the song. On Spotify alone, the artist listeners surpassed 30 million.
While the song was doing numbers, many people were still wondering who really owned the song on TikTok, CKay said a 34-second TikTok video of himself singing an acoustic version of the song, set the records straight.
The Managing director of Warner Music Group South Africa, Temi Adeniji said, “The song is in a league of its own. There’s no one who has ever done this before.”
A performance video for the acoustic version was also released in 2020 and has since garnered 200 million views on YouTube. Even the video shot by TG Omori surpassed 34 million views after a month of release on YouTube. As of December 2021, “Love Nwantiti” was the most certified Afrobeats song. It also became the second song by a Nigerian artist to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Global 200 after “Essence”.
In 2022, it won the Most Performed International Song at the BMI Awards, London. It was also nominated as the Best International Song at the 2022 Brit Awards and the Best Collabo of the Year at the City People Music Award in 2020.
Love Nwantiti has charted in over 160 countries, yet the singer doesn’t want anyone to compare him to his idols, Davido, Wizkid and Burna Boy.
He appeared on “La La” from Davido’s studio album A Better Time, as well as “Beggie Beggie” from Ayra Starr’s debut studio album 19 & Dangerous. On December 3, 2021, CKay released “Emiliana”, and “By Your Side” featuring Blxckie. Emiliana charted across Europe, and Africa, also reaching number 9 in France and earning him, his first top 5 ranking on the Nigeria TurnTable Top 50 chart. On May 26, 2022, Emiliana was certified platinum in France.
On June 20, 2022, CKay became the second African artist to reach 1.2 billion streams on Spotify and was surpassed by 200 million streams by Burna Boy, as the most streamed with a total of 1.4 billion streams. On August 18, 2022, CKay surpassed 100 Million Streams on Boomplay and was given a golden club plaque. He also racked up several YouTube views, reportedly over a billion this year.
His latest album, Sad romance is his first studio album and was released on September 23, 2022. He is also expected to perform at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
