Masterpiece + Marketing: Is Nasboi a combination of both?
We can trace our minds back to the O.B.O look alike, mimicking Davido back in the day, known as “Davido Twin” but now Nasboi.
Originally Lawal Michael Nasiru Bolaji, Nasboi came in to the limelight as Davido’s raspy voice mimicker, featuring in skits claiming to be the said artiste. An act which was merely for comic purpose, growing from there into being his own brand today.
Reformation began soon enough for him after he moved from being just an internet sensation mimicking an afrobeats icon, Davido, into Nasboi, fully evolving into his own entertainer, a master of many acts, including marketing.
Are these marketing skills an ingenious trait in him?
From how he pushed his debut into the music scene with a song titled Umbrella featuring Wande Coal, we see someone whose drive for excellence is solid. Music, comedy, or being a skit maker is part of him, creating a masterpiece out of these aspects of entertaining, being an innovative marketer as well. His content speaks for itself, but needs push, and Nasboi does so well at that.
Nasboi’s style of music appeals largely to everyone, because he uses a blend of culturally predominant adages used by millennials to present day Gen Z’s. “Me I no fine like baboon, but you go still love me like this oh. Even if na taboo, you go still want be my boo.”
The question is how he does it? Is it just music and flow, or a creator’s intentionality to carry all age brackets along, piquing the interest of another artiste in his lyrics while at that too?
With an early released track titled “Lover Boy” before “Umbrella,” Nasboi says “Oh, my lover, omo to dun to yi. Girl I go sing like Wande Coal, and I go even use Falsetto” — a direct appraisal of Wande’s unique voice, a core industry value around his soft like, indispensable falsetto. Is that not a masterpiece, a strong marketing lure to what became a collaboration?
About the line of his promotions online
Nasboi uses a never-done content sale approach, creating a switch of character roles between his co-skit makers, inciting an interest between his followers and those he used. We see Sabinus The Investor play the role of Brain Jotter, and Brain Jotter imitating Nasboi, while Nasboi played the Sabinus Character. This strategy is called — in the corporate setting — as influencer marketing, but with a niche called “licensed character impersonation.”
Using influencer character impersonation, Nasboi banked on their multiple influencer audience as a promotion strategy for his “Umbrella” track, garnering the needed media acceptance.
If you don’t accept the song, you’d accept your favorite skit maker. Dare to refuse both, you’d be drawn in by the dance step attached to it, a concept artiste in Nigeria have adopted for long.
From the infamous Etighi to Shoki to Shakiti Bobo to the current Tshwala Bam dance, we’ve seen the media go wild with dance steps that follow songs. So will this be Nasboi’s strategy — as he did with “Umbrella” — in his new song titled “Small Money”?
Going on with his promotion for his Umbrella track, we see him lecturing some Nigeria Muslim brothers on how the lyrics go, showing a mini-crowd of ram sellers how to meet up with what he has going. A strategy to capture the audience in the Northern part of Nigeria. Not so many artistes or music distributors think of this, because it’s almost an invisible zone, Northern areas in Nigeria for music promotions, but Nas Boi factored that in.
For “Small Money,” Nasboi goes the same line in some way, praising Yhemolee. This is not just lyrics, but reconciliation cum marketing.
We also saw that Yhemolee and NasBoi had a major fallout, where Yhemolee in Isbae U’s roasting-guests Curiosity Made Me Ask interview session, wondered why skit makers will ever want to switch to being artistes, calling Nasboi’s voice too “masculine.”
This led to a back and forth between both of them, resulting in apologies at the end. But is this song sorting the beef, as both Nasboi and Yhemolee are seen cruising in a tease-visualizer for Small Money or is this a part of his influencer marketing strategy? Of course, it is.
Lessons
Nasboi gives insight to how businesses can combine masterpieces with excellent and ingenious marketing abilities. If you can harness the market through collaboration, throw all your eggs in.
Multiple influencer marketing among influencers within your niche proves to be a sellable chart course toward selling your product.
Leveraging media visibility goes far in media conversions, a use case of grabbing the attention of the market and turning them into actual consumers of your product.
