Fireboy DML went into his new album wanting more features on it. That plan fell apart, and he’s decided he’s fine with it.
“I tried to make it more collaborative than it is, but it just didn’t work out, and I just felt like maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be,” he said of ‘ZUKO!’ while speaking with Apple Music’s Afric Now Radio.
That’s a bold call in a scene that runs on guest spots, and the Abeokuta-raised singer knows it. He admitted that Nigerian fans in particular “love to see their favorite names on the track lists of their favourite artists.”
He also pointed out that collaboration has been one of the main ways Afrobeats acts have grown over the years, which makes his more personal approach feel like a real gamble.
His reasoning is simple. “I don’t fight anything anymore; I just let it be,” he said, adding that listeners will understand the choice once they hear the record all the way through.
The guests who did make the cut get real space. South African acts Thukuthela and JAZZWRLD join him on “IMALI,” the Zulu word for money, and Fireboy says the three of them have already recorded three or four songs together.
He’s frank about the theme too, saying God has blessed him with money in recent years, but his current mindset is that he needs more to live the life he wants.
It’s been seven years since “Jealous” made him a mainstream name in 2019. Since then he has moved through the reflective ‘Laughter, Tears & Goosebumps,’ the swagger of ‘Playboy,’ and 2024’s ‘adedamola,’ which he describes as his way of telling fans he hadn’t lost who he was.
‘ZUKO!’ turns that idea inward. “I figured that it’s not just enough to remind people who you are if you have to also remind yourself,” he said.
He also believes a misunderstanding of his persona may have created a disconnect with listeners, and he sees this album as a way to close that gap.
The sound backs up the shift. Tracks like “BY FIRE!,” “C’EST LA VIE” and “ONAZO!” put him over some of the most driving dance production of his career, drawing on the continent’s dance styles while keeping the soul leanings his fans know.
Fireboy calls it a grown version of the old formula, with “a little bit more grit, a little bit more anger, a little bit more pain.”
The artwork centres on a bull, an image he connects to South American culture and the red cloth used to provoke it.
No one has to know that you’re scared of facing your fears, but just look confident while facing them,” he explained, crediting his creative director for shaping the vision after a meeting earlier in 2026.
The album opens with “Dear Father,” which he calls a letter of supplication to God. He says the intro is there to calm your mind, and it’s actually the second song that sets the tone.
The track he seems most eager to talk about is “One Man Regiment,” which he says “explains all my madness,” including why the rollout and visuals look the way they do. A video for it is set to drop on the 16th.
He describes the whole project as his own take on what an attempt at a global album from an African artist should sound like, and fans are only starting to decide if fewer features was the right price for that vision.
