Omawumi’s debut album, ‘Wonder Woman’ clocks 10

The album might have deserved the mixed reactions it got, but Omawumi's success after it suggests that she might have needed those reactions. 

In April 2007, Idols West Africa debuted on M-Net. Upon commencement, it ran for 8 weeks and ended on May 27, 2007.

While a certain female vocalist had a topsy turvy campaign, she got to the finals, only to be sadly eliminated during the grand finale. She had garnered fans and supporters throughout her run for her very African peculiarities that she was seldom shy of displaying.

More importantly, fans like this scribe fell in love with her lyric mezzo soprano voice type that shone at every pitch and seemed impressively indomitable at breaking point-high pitches in particular.

She was one of a kind, and she had a smile to captivate the heart of even the ‘hardest guy.’ Her name is Omawumi Megbele, a queen of afro-dance. She might have lost, but the competition couldn’t have been better than Timi Dakolo.

That moment of crushing disappointment, especially when she lasted the entire journey only to be eliminated at the final hurdle could have fazed her, but it didn’t. She rose and picked her career up to become one of Nigeria’s most prominent artists of the past decade.

On May 21, 2009, she released her 16-track debut studio album, Wonder Woman. Promoted by singles like, ‘Today Na Today,’ and ‘In The Music,’ the album excelled on structured songwriting and good storytelling when necessary on songs, and it effortlessly blended genres like R&B, pop, dance, Hip-Hop, disco and afro-fusion.

The album provided Nigeria with an ace female singer for the mainstream during a time Nigeria was short on those. Asa was a niche offering that was not about the dance music and setting dancefloors on fire. At the time, the album got mixed reactions from critics, but in hindsight, maybe critics only judged the album for what they heard.

Asides the singles and the more popular tracks on the album, songs like ‘Ma Fi Mi Shere’featuring eLDee, ‘Serious Love Nwantiti,’ ‘Love It’ featuring Shank, ‘When The Breeze Blow,’ ‘I Miss My Baby’ and the ‘Outro’ are top notch songs.