17 APRIL 2023, JOHANNESBURG: Emo-Afrobeats star CKay has had quite the start to 2023, traveling across the globe and the rest of his 2023 looks to get even busier.
All the while CKay has been reaching some personal milestones as a musician. His hit single, ‘Emiliana’ has surpassed over 70 million views on YouTube, making it the star’s fourth music video to reach this feat. Additionally, India is a crucial market for CKay. Indian musician and actress Nora Fotehi performed a mashup of his evergreen single ‘love nwantiti’ in her set in Orlando, Florida. The hit song itself recently went 20x platinum in India. CKay also covers India’s digital magazine FACE, chronicling his journey in music, his creative process, and Afrobeats taking over the world.
Throughout 2023, CKay has been on stage kicking things off with his performance at the African Nations Championship (AFCON) which took place in Algeria earlier this year. Since
The artist has also shared snaps with musicians such as Olamide, Roddy Rich, and fellow Nigerian superstar Olamide while teasing new music on the way.
On January 20th CKay released an Amapianoremix for his song ‘by now’ which he premiered exclusively on TikTok.
The sound has since piqued the interest of the singer’s fans and TikTokers alike with over 24K creations on the remix. Even though CKayaccompanied the remix with the #bynowdancechallenge, which fans have participated in, dropping it on TikTok meant that fans could make their own. Since its inception, TikTok has proven to be an integral medium for music consumption and for musicians to gauge interest in a song they are mulling over. This is particularly true in the Amapiano genre where artists typically drop songs on social media for maximum fan engagement and only make the songs accessible on streaming services sometime after.
then, the musician has performed at the Vh1 Supersonic 2023 festival in Pune, India, and is currently headlining his Nigerian university tour aptly titled ‘Boyfriend On Tour’. In March and April, CKay will be performing at universities including Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK),Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), University of Lagos (UNILAG), University of Calabar (UNICAL), and Baze University. Fans outside of Nigeria will be glad to know CKay will take a few international stages this summer.
May
AfroNation (Miami, FL. 27 May – 28 May)
Festival Santa Teresa 2023 (Canada, 12 May – 14 May)
July
Dour Festival 2023 (Belgium, 12 July – 16 July)
Lollapalooza (Paris, 21 July – 23 July)
HIPHOP OPEN festival (Stuttgart, Germany: 28 July – 30 July)
August
Weekend Festival 2023 (Finland, 04 August – 05 August)
ABOUT CKAY
Chukwuka Ekweani, known publicly as CKay, is the rising star in the ever-burgeoning Afrobeats scene. A multi-talented artist, whether behind the boards as a producer or in front of the mic performing his self-penned songs, it is CKay’s single-minded vision that shines through. The self-defined Emo-Afrobeat star has and continues to soar up charts across the globe thanks to his first globally recognized single ‘love nwantiti’.
The Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer originally released ‘love Nwantiti (ah ah ah)’back in 2019 as part of his debut EP, CKay The First. In 2021, CKay became the most streamed artist of the year and became the first African artist with two tracks on the Global Spotify Top 30 simultaneously. ‘love nwantiti’ has been certified platinum/multi-platinum in five countries, including the United States, India and Italy. The viral hit has also been certified gold in the UK, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. CKaybecame the first African artist in 50 years to hold a top 5 position on the UK Singles Chart for 4 straight weeks with ‘love nwantiti’.
CKay has continued to create a global presence with accomplishments such as the “most Shazam-ed song in the world”. His most recent globally recognized single, ‘Emiliana’, has followed suit, racked in global chart positions, and has just under 100 million streams. ‘Emiliana’ peaked at #1 on the UK Afrobeats Chart, #2 on Shazam Top 200 (Afrobeats), and #1 in six countries onApple Music.
Follow his journey here:
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | YouTube |Spotify | Apple Music | Shazam
