Album Review: Adekunle Gold's Tequila Ever After is a Fine Showcase of Penmanship
The Nigerian singer infuses emotion and lyrical depth.
With Adekunle Gold, nothing is ever out of place in his sonic world. Each Adekunle Gold project is marked by intentionality, further burnishing his artistic mosaic. His 2016 debut album ‘Gold’ was a collage of traditional Nigerian music influences and the dreams of stardom he held as an up-and-coming act while 2018’s ‘About 30’ showed his maturity as an artist and gave glimpses of his appetite for bold experimentation. ‘Afropop Vol.1’ (2020) was a watershed moment for Adekunle Gold as he settled into a new sonic journey, exemplified by the moniker AG Baby. On 2022’s ‘Catch Me If You Can,’ AG Baby declared his supremacy and, on his latest album, ‘Tequila Ever After,’ Adekunle Gold—or Tio Tequila as he currently identifies—is establishing the mastery of his own lane, his style and his legacy.
‘Tequila Ever After’ was born after Adekunle Gold, in Los Angeles, discovered his love for tequila, an alcoholic drink which hails from Mexico. “It made me feel good,” he said in his NATIVE Now! Cover story in July. “I wanted to describe the feeling of tequila. The way tequila made me feel that one time; I wanted people to feel the same way with the music. The songs that I made for this album are lighthearted and conversational; they’re conversations you have with friends when tequila kicks in.” In true fashion, the recently released album shepherds Adekunle Gold in a new creative direction, bonding him with new collaborators who bring more colour to his vibrant world and further cement his stardom. For any artist with almost a decade of experience, unearthing new creative sparks is a blessing and AG Baby doesn’t waste that moment.
A few weeks leading up to the album’s release, AG Baby was on a stellar promotional run, inviting audiences into his sonic world by sharing intimate clips of the album recording process. The intentionality of the Adekunle Gold brand isn’t only restricted to the music we hear but also to the music videos and the singer’s fashion choices. To promote ‘Tequila Ever After,’ Adekunle Gold curates “A Shot of Tequila Ever After,” a series that offers behind-the-scenes coverage of how the tracks on the album were made. The series captures raw moments of Adekunle Gold and his collaborators—featured acts and producers—conceptualising ideas and finalising them into songs. While it brings attention to the album, it also shows Adekunle Gold’s comfortability in his craft and his confidence in letting the audience into the unpolished processes of making music.
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