Asake saved one of his most-talked-about tracks for a room small enough that you could actually see his face when he did it. The Nigerian Afrobeats star performed ‘M$NEY’ live for the very first time at an intimate Spotify concert in London, giving fans in attendance something they didn’t see coming.
‘M$NEY’ has been circulating hard since its release, picking up serious traction across streaming platforms and social media, so the decision to debut it live in an intimate setting rather than a festival stage or arena says something about how Asake is choosing to connect with his audience right now. London has consistently been one of his strongest markets outside Nigeria, and the city’s Afrobeats fanbase has a reputation for showing up loud and knowing every word.
Spotify Sessions-style events like this one tend to create a different kind of energy than a standard headline show. The crowd is smaller, the production is stripped back just enough, and there’s a closeness between the artist and the room that a 10,000-capacity venue simply can’t replicate — which makes a live debut land harder when it happens.
For fans who’ve been streaming ‘M$NEY’ on repeat, finally hearing it performed live is a moment that’s been building. The track carries that signature Asake bounce — the melodic Yoruba-inflected delivery, the rhythmic layering that makes his music feel simultaneously spiritual and club-ready — and translating that energy into a live setting for the first time is always a test of whether a song truly has legs beyond the speakers.
Asake has been on a consistent upward trajectory since ‘Mr Money With The Vibe’ put him on the global map, and each release since has been watched closely by both fans and industry observers trying to figure out where his sound is heading. ‘M$NEY’ fits neatly into that conversation, carrying echoes of his earlier work while pushing at the edges of what he’s done before.
The London Afrobeats scene has been vocal about its appreciation for Asake specifically — he’s one of the artists who gets cited when people talk about the genre’s crossover into mainstream UK culture, not just within diaspora communities but across the broader music-listening public. A live debut in that city, in that kind of setting, feels deliberate rather than accidental.
There’s always a split reaction when an artist performs a new track live for the first time. Some fans are thrilled to be in the room for a first, while others who weren’t there immediately take to social media to express that particular flavour of FOMO that only live music creates. Clips from the night have been making their way online, which means the moment is already expanding beyond the people who were physically present.
