For a singer and songwriter just making her American album debut, Tiwa Savage is wildly overqualified.

“Celia,” released Aug. 28, is actually her fourth full-length album in Nigeria, where she was born and has been hailed in recent years as the “Queen of Afrobeats,” the West African pop finding its way to a growing worldwide audience.

It’s the global leveling-up of a solo career that also includes plenty of non-album singles and collaborations with top Afrobeats performers like Wizkid, Davido and Patoranking. Savage was featured on “Keys to the Kingdom” with Mr Eazi on Beyoncé’s “The Lion King: The Gift” (repurposed this year for Beyoncé’s visual album “Black Is King”).

Savage, 40, has also been a television host (on “Nigerian Idol”), a stage and television actress, her own video director, and an activist devoted to H.I.V./AIDS prevention and to combating rape culture in Nigeria. Her international reach, on streaming services and beyond, reflects international experience.

“I lived in Nigeria; I lived in London; I lived in America,” she said via Zoom from her home in Lagos, casually dressed in a T-shirt and, she noted, not wearing makeup or eyelashes. “Those are three different, completely different cultures and different continents. So I’ve just grown up just being a sponge for different kinds of music.”

Before she started her solo career in Nigeria a decade ago, Savage worked behind the scenes in the American and British music business. She has songwriting credits on albums by Fantasia, Kat DeLuna and Monica, and she sang backup on tour with Mary J. Blige, in the studio on Whitney Houston’s final album and onstage at Wembley Stadium with George Michael.

“Celia” is an album of sleekly insinuating Afrobeats grooves that carry love songs and understated but purposeful messages of empowerment. The lyrics switch between English and Yoruba as Savage glides through her melodies, rarely raising her airy, unflappable voice. Her latest single, “Temptation,” is a duet with the English pop singer Sam Smith, who was “flattered” to join her, Smith said via Zoom from London, because “I think she’s sensational.”

Smith added, “Tiwa has this natural tone in her voice that makes you feel like you’re listening to a friend. It feels comfortable and feels wholesome and homey. And she sounds kind when she sings. My favorite singers have a softness to their voice that doesn’t, you know, smash you in the face. It just sits with you and talks to you in a kind and soft way. That’s how I hear her voice.”

Savage is treating “Celia” as both a culmination and a new beginning. “When I first started out as an artist, I was seen a certain way, and I’ve grown since then,” she said. “I’ve experienced a divorce, being a single mom and seeing backlash for being sometimes too sexy in a male-dominated industry.”

Starting over again in a new territory, “I wanted my message to be clear,” she added. “I have a platform now to encourage young African girls — and just young girls in general — how important it is to be true to yourself and be unapologetically strong as a woman.” Throughout the album, her subtlety is strategic. “Initially when you hear it, it’s just like, ‘Oh, I want to be in the club, shaking my butt.’ So I’ll get you that way first. And then you go back and listen to the lyrics and then you get inspired by it,” Savage said.

Source: Graphic.com.gh