Davido’s longtime manager, Asa Asika, has put a presidential stamp on the singer’s fame, calling him one of the most powerful young Nigerians alive and joking that the 33-year-old already moves like a head of state.
The remarks came from Asika’s appearance on The Manager’s Playbook podcast.
“Davido is probably the most influential person from Nigeria below the age of 40, in my opinion,” Asika said.
On social media, he added, there is “no argument,” because Davido is “probably the most followed artist on almost every social media platform.” He said he often teases the singer about the size of that influence.
“You do know you’re kind of like the president of Nigeria.”
Some agreed that Davido’s reach is unmatched among young entertainers. Others said influence on Instagram is not the same thing as national office. Either way, the manager was not talking about elections. He was talking about how quickly the country forgets Davido’s worst weeks.
“There are some things I’ve seen Davido do and be like, if someone else did this, they would never ever get back from this. Sometimes I’m like, yeah, it’s over. I don’t know how we’re going to bounce back from this. And everybody wakes up tomorrow morning and they’re like, yeah, nothing happened,” Asika said.
Davido, born David Adedeji Adeleke on November 21, 1992, is still under 40, and Asika believes that recovery power is part of the brand.
That brand, he said, now pays for itself. Asika called Davido “a walking billboard” and said companies write in just to borrow his hands for a few minutes.
“I have emails from brands being like, I just want Davido to like hold this bottle for 20 minutes or put in his video.”
The result, he claimed, is that the camp rarely foots the full cost of a video anymore. Brands want the exposure, so they help bankroll the pictures.
“I haven’t paid for music videos with our own money in ages.”
Asika said the team still picks partners carefully and prefers deals that look natural. He pointed to Martell, Puma and a Chinese phone company that signed Davido to a 10-year deal even though the singer was not using its handset. That partnership, he said, put Davido’s face on billboards in African capitals including Abidjan, Mauritius and Tanzania.
Asika has managed Davido for years through The Plug and has been in his circle for more than a decade. Praise from a manager is never neutral. Still, the clip explains why the industry keeps treating Davido as more than a hitmaker. In Asika’s telling, the songs sell the man, and the man sells the brands.