ENTERTAINMENT: Why YBNL’s Lil Kesh Is Hinted as Olamide’s Heir Presumptive

YBNL’s Ololade Keshinro popularly referred to as Lil Kesh has become a synonymous name in the Nigerian hip-hop scene as one of the fast rising acts in the country today. Lil Kesh aka “the shoki-master”. 

Barely 21 years old, the youngster started a new street dance in Nigeria, and his ‘SHOKI” song became one of the top 3 songs downloaded in Nigeria on iTunes and the remix video has close to 2million views.

We cannot take an indepth look at Lil Kesh’s career without doing a little flash-back to the origin of Indigenous rap in Nigeria. CEO of YBNL records, Olamide who signed Lil Kesh officially to his label in March 2014 also metamorphosed from humble beginnings just like Kesh is doing right now.

Olamide’s success story dates back to when he kicked off his career with Coded Tunes and how he credits the Late DaGrin as his inspiration. Olamide emerged into the indigenous rap scene right after the death of DaGrin which left a huge vacuum in Nigeria’s music industry and it didn’t take long before Olamide showed the world that he was good enough to fit into those shoes.
 

And just like Olamide drew inspiration from DaGrin, Lil Kesh also draws inspiration from Olamide and has had a pretty impressive career so far, although he’s not where he ought to be just yet, it definitely looks like he’s right on his way and the pace is just perfect.

The first time we heard Lil Kesh was on a song titled ‘Lyrically’, a song which boasts of very witty and pun intended lines that easily got the attention of indigenous rap lovers from all over. Olamide shared the song with his fans and the feedback was amazing. We think that was when talks of Lil Kesh getting on the bandwagon talks began, and like every other upcoming artist, Lil Kesh needed a project to deliver him to the world, one to make him a force to reckon with, hence, he dropped Shoki.

Olamide x Lil Kesh

Shoki was simple, but yet explosive and was an instant hit, not satisfied with the initial results, Olamide the head honcho quickly made the move for a remix which featured himself and Davido which had an immediate ”Butterfly Effect’ on the song. The video for the single was amazing and the audio for the song first hit the internet.

Not resting on his oars, Lil Kesh began to feature on several other singles with other artists, and more importantly, Olamide’s 4th studio album, Street OT which Kesh featured on three singles on the album; ‘Oga Nla’ where he featured alongside Pasuma, ‘Bang’ where he featured alongside label mate Chinko Ekun and Usain Bolt P.

Like his label boss, Olamide it might take Lil Kesh his second album and to some extent independence to finally rival those he is currently looking up to.

Lil Kesh is admired by fans for his witty punchlines, rhymes and his irregular voice which has a way of persuading the fans to love it. Kesh has also shown more prospects as he already dropped his first single of 2015 titled ‘Gbese’. The video for ‘Gbese’ has seen over 100k views on YouTube and the number is fast-rising.
 

He was featured on HipTV’s Next Rated interview and was also nominated for Best Street Hip-Hop artist category at the Headies 2014 where he lost to Oritsefemi in that category. He controversially lost out to Reekado Banks at the Headies Rookie Of The Year awards category last fall. He has since been hinted as the next in line after the Da Grin – Olamide era, while that remains a big shoe for anyone to fill but truth is in Hip Hop, almost every icon has an heir… If they do as well as them is another question.

Jay Z anointed Kanye West as his heir and Ye has gone on to win 21 Grammy Awards while Jay Z cites Christopher Wallace a.k.a The Notorious B.I.G as his mentor.

Lil Kesh is presently studying Linguistics at the prestigous University of Lagos.

He also reportedly acquired a Range Rover SUV recently. Happy birthday Lil Kesh!