If you’ve been following Nigerian music over the last few years, then you have noticed the meteoric rise and the sudden decline of the Super Mavin’s dynasty as an ensemble super group. Sure, individual artists like Reekado Banks and Tiwa Savage have managed to keep themselves in the conversation through a stellar EP (and rumoured romance with Wizkid) for Tiwa and a long delayed tour for Reekado Banks. But everyone else on the label seems to have entered some kind of limbo, we know they’re still active as artists in the industry but the projects they’ve been putting out have either stayed mid-level or not caught fire at all (this is especially true of Di’Ja at this point). But of all the artists on the label, Dr. Sid has been the one with the most to prove.

His last album was all the way back in 2013, and even then the album was released for free as a promotional package, possibly in the hopes that he would recoup the losses from a robust performance tour. That didn’t quite happen either. There have been a couple of singles in 2015 and 2017, but those didn’t quite make the impact we’d expect of a singer of Dr. Sid’s calibre and influence. But all of this was understandable considering the singer got married, turned his attention to building his family and raising his daughter. He even got faux locs, which the internet as expected, tried to write off as some of mid-life crisis. Sid was quick to correct them, and now he seems ready to take another gamble at the music industry.

The singer just released two new singles on the 1st of May to celebrate his birthday (how this works, I have no idea) but he hasn’t quite clarified if they are going to be part of a bigger project or if they’re just cutting floor singles that he’s choosing to bless his fans with. We’ll just have to wait and see.

As for the songs themselves?

They are classic Mavin fare, heavy on the autotune and easy on the ears. Solidstar really elevates ‘Softly’ with a bit of island vibe and ’40 Bottles’ has an interesting line up of DJ Big N, Shody, King Spesh and D2Dotun. It might catch on in club scenes cos of the on-the-nose alcohol references but outside those circles, not so sure.

Either way, we are excited to see the good Dr. back to making music.

Listen to ‘Softly’ here.

and ’40 Bottles’ here.

Editor