What If Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido and Asake Never Chose Music? Fan Imagines Alternate Nigerian Music Scene

A social media user has sparked an interesting conversation about Nigeria’s music industry after imagining what the country’s Afrobeats scene might have looked like if some of its biggest stars had pursued completely different careers.

X user Solá: The Energy posed the hypothetical question in a post on September 23, imagining alternative paths for artistes including Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Blaqbonez, Asake and Rema.

The post asked what would have happened to Nigerian music if some of the artistes had followed different career paths or never received the opportunities that eventually propelled them to stardom.

The user wondered what the Nigerian music scene would look like if Wizkid had listened to his father and abandoned music, or if Burna Boy had pursued football professionally.

The post also imagined Davido joining his family's business, Blaqbonez becoming a computer engineer, Asake becoming an actor and Rema never uploading the freestyle that eventually brought him to the attention of D'Prince.

Among the scenarios highlighted was Rema's discovery by D'Prince.

Rema's breakthrough story is well documented. In 2018, he posted an Instagram freestyle over D'Prince's “Gucci Gang”, tagged D'Prince and other industry figures, and caught the attention of the music executive. D'Prince subsequently signed him to Jonzing World.

That discovery eventually helped launch Rema's career, with the singer going on to develop his own “Afro-rave” sound and become one of Nigeria's internationally recognised young artistes.

The post also referenced Wizkid, Burna Boy and Davido, whose careers have played major roles in the development and international expansion of modern Nigerian popular music.

Wizkid began recording music as a child and later achieved international recognition through songs including his collaboration with Drake on “One Dance.”

Burna Boy started making music as a teenager, later dropping out of university after two years and returning to Nigeria to pursue music more seriously. His subsequent work helped establish his global profile.

Davido, meanwhile, studied business administration before leaving university to concentrate on music and eventually becoming one of Nigeria's most prominent Afrobeats artistes.

The post's suggestion that Asake could have become an actor is particularly interesting because the singer actually studied Theatre and Dramatic Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University before his music career took off.

Asake's major breakthrough came in 2022, when he was signed by Olamide's YBNL and released projects including the Ololade EP. His rapid rise helped introduce a distinctive blend of street-pop and amapiano-influenced sounds into the mainstream Afrobeats conversation.

While Solá's post is purely hypothetical, it raises a broader question about how individual opportunities, decisions and chance encounters can influence the development of an entire music industry.

The rise of Afrobeats has involved several generations of artistes and producers, with Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy helping drive its international expansion before newer stars such as Rema, Asake, Tems and Ayra Starr pushed the sound into another phase of global visibility.

Rema's chance encounter with D'Prince, Asake's transition from theatre into music and the different career decisions made by earlier stars illustrate how unpredictable an artiste's journey can be.

Solá's question therefore leaves fans with an intriguing thought: if even a few of these artistes had chosen different paths, would Nigeria's current generation of music superstars look completely different?