Music Review: Is Skales The Man Of The Year?

 Having been in the industry for a while, Raoul
John Njeng – Njeng otherwise known as Skales
started out showing a lot of promise.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out so
well when he tried to transition from being a
rap artiste to a pop star.
 Perhaps, one of the reason why his contract
wasn’t renewed at his then label, Empire Mates
Entertainment (EME). Well, without or without
EME, the now domiciled Baseline artiste, has
forged on with the recent release of his highly
anticipated debut album, Man of the year, a 22
track album in which he featured Burna Boy,
Davido, Reekado Banks, Olamide , Victoria
Kimani, Ice Prince, Phyno, Kenny Wonder,
Attitude, Capital FEMIandRotimi. Production
credits goes to Jay Pizzle, Spellz, Orbeat, Dj
Coublon, Uhuru, Echo, Bobby Combz, Ganja
Beatz, Drey Beatz and TK on the beat.
Surprisingly, his record label’s in-house music
producer, Mr Chiddo, didn’t feature in the
production of the album.
The album kicks off with an amazing intro by
Cool FM on air personality, Do2dtun, something
that immediately sets one in the mood that one
is about to listen to a great album. It continues
with a steady progression and ascension in
sound quality alternating between different
genres of music as well as an impressive
diversity.
He did try to experiment with other genres like
rap which he stared with, pop and R n B. Clearly
he is more at home with singing than with rap.
Some of the stand-out songs in the album are;
track 3: Lo Le, track 4: Always featuring Davido,
track 6: Ijo Ayo featuring Olamide and I am for
real and happy.
Many have said that the song, I am for real and
happy, is a shot at his former label mate,
Wizkid, whom he had a spat with in the social
media. A poor try if you ask me, considering
that there are 22 songs and only four seem
pretty okay. Clearly, Skales tried the best he
could to make the listening public respect him
and his album. He does his best to pull all his
tricks on the album which really has too many
songs but the watered down lyrics is to say the
least, quite disconcerting. Beyond any
reasonable doubt, Skales shouldn’t have titled
his debut album, Man of the year, a title that
was already an album title, not only closely
associated with indigenous rapper, Phyno, but
something the rapper clearly earned. The album
obviously doesn’t deserve it.