Nigeria: Wande Coal announces Umbrella single

Co-written by Grammy-nominated producer Sak Pase and dancehall star Sean Kingston, the track, according to Wande Coal, is “meant to celebrate love and how protective, special, and full of life it makes you feel.” 

The song’s accompanying video was directed by Austin McCracken. “I like for my music to tell a story and paint a picture of what I’m going through and experiencing,” Wande Coal noted about the visual direction. “When people listen to this, I want them to think of happier times with people they love to be around.”

Wande Coal is among the most influential names in Afrobeats, with over 200 million global streams. He is also behind Afro-pop essentials like ‘Iskaba’ (2017), ‘So Mi So’ (2018) and the Patoranking collaboration, ‘My Woman, My Everything’ (2015).

‘Umbrella’ is the second single from EMPIRE’s new compilation album Where We Come From (Vol. 1), following ‘Cough’ by Kizz Daniel. It is also the first video off the project. The distribution company and record label says it was also released in “celebration of the explosion of African music in mainstream airwaves.”

Artists set to be spotlighted on the upcoming project include Fireboy DML, Olamide and Black Sherif, among others.

“It was an honour to sign a legend like Wande Coal. As a forefather of the Afro-fusion genre, we wanted to make sure we highlighted him on this project,” EMPIRE’s senior vice president of A&R, Tina Davis, said. “Outside of him being an amazing person, he approaches this record from a pure place of love.”

“The artists from Africa really transcend where music is today,” EMPIRE CEO and founder Ghazi said. “This is a legendary moment for EMPIRE to be able to share incredible African music with the world, much of which we were fortunate enough to record at our studio here in San Francisco.”