With a project technically planned with constructive promotion and a respectable budget, A Better Time by Davido still manages to fall on the wrong side of some critic. Released in November 2020, Davido’s a better time boasts of top class international collaborations which by the way might just be one of the numerous reasons for the backlash. Lil Baby who’s verse on the project costed Davido a whooping $100,000.00 according to a tweet by Lil Baby after he got condemned by his own fans over to their disappointment on the outcome of the track.

A lot of people have moved with the assumption that if Lil Baby’s verse alone cost $100k, then definitely other stars like Nicki Minaj who obviously is a bigger brand than Lil Baby might have cost way more. The album went ahead to feature Naz, Young Thug, Chris Brown as star appearances from outside the continent. I guess the estimation of the features has driven a lot of critic crazy and then one would get to wonder, is the recognition and attention being drawn to the Nigerian music industry not worth the effort? I remember stumbling on some tweets condemning some of the tracks on the album as below par and as something that wasn’t expected of Davido at his level. It will be understanding if a project falls short in the areas of lyrics and content but basing aggressive dissatisfaction over money spent on releasing a top flight album is totally off the radar  for me. Davido is no doubt one of the pillars of Nigerian afro-pop music and as such doesn’t deserve the banters he got.

We tried to put information together to estimate the total project cost for the release of this album and our mathematics put it around $3,000,000 to $5m which I believe is still a far cry budget to start to compete with foreign counterparts on the international scene.