Songwriter

Wizkid

Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun

Lagos, Nigeria·b. 1990-07-16

Wizkid — Ayodeji Balogun — is the Lagos-born Afrobeats artist and songwriter whose featured vocal and co-writing on "One Dance" (2016) made him a named credit on what became Drake's first solo Billboard Hot 100 No. 1. The track was built by Nineteen85 and 40 around Kyla's "Do You Mind" hook, but Wizkid's verse and his Afrobeats-cadence delivery are part of why the record reads as a global pivot rather than a Toronto record with a hook sample. He was already a major Nigerian star at the time of "One Dance" — Pioneer of the modern Afrobeats wave through his Star Boy era — and the Drake collaboration accelerated his international visibility, with subsequent placements on "Come Closer" from More Life. Outside the Drake catalog his writing has anchored his own multi-platinum projects (Made in Lagos, More Love Less Ego) and shaped the broader Afrobeats-pop interface that artists like Burna Boy and Tems would push further. His Drake co-writes are limited in number but oversized in cultural footprint: "One Dance" is the song that announced Drake's Afro-Caribbean pivot to a global audience and remains one of the most-streamed songs in the catalog.