“Essence,” the 11th track on Wizkid’s fourth studio album, Made in Lagos, is arguably one of Nigeria’s biggest international hits in recent years.
The song, which was released in 2020, has won awards, received positive feedback, and is still topping charts two years later.
Essence was named the number one song in the United States Afrobeats Songs category for 2022 in the recently released Billboard year-end music recaps.
The song has been nominated for Best Global Music Performance at the 2022 Grammy Awards. Most recently, the song was named Favorite R&B Song at the 50th Annual American Music Awards.
The song, which featured Tems, became popular in the American music scene after several celebrities, including rap legend, Snoop Dogg and reality TV star, Kylie Jenner, posted videos of themselves vibing to the track in early 2021.
In August of the same year, Canadian superstar, Justin Bieber was featured on the song’s remix which became an instant favourite with listeners.
Following the creation of Billboard’s U.S. Afrobeats chart category in March 2021, Essence held the top spot on the chart in July.
It afterwards peaked at number 9 on the Hot 100 chart in October 2021.