Adekunle Gold isn’t looking over his shoulder as Afropop storms the world

In the video for Pick Up, Adekunle Gold is stunned by a portrait of his gilded self on a phantom Forbes cover. It’s an exciting vision of the riches he hopes to bank in his fledgling music career.

Pick Up, one of 15 songs on Gold’s eponymous debut album, is now six years old, old enough in music’s current TikTok and streaming-driven age to be seen as being of a different era. Two other albums have followed yet no real life Forbes cover, but who’s keeping track, eh? You can count artists who have one on one hand: Billionaire Kanye, yes. Billionaire Rihanna, nope. What really matters to Gold is peace of mind and being immersed in the love of his fellow artist wife, Simi, and their child Adejare.

But make no mistake, this 35-year-old former graphic designer for Nigerian e-commerce companies knows he’s in a golden age of African music, one he has helped define with other world-conquering Afrobeats acts like Wizkid, and Davido. And so Gold releases Catch Me If You Can, his fourth album, today (Feb. 4) with American and British hip hop features that amplify Africa’s moment, while holding on to a distinct Afropop signature that insists on diversity.

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