In the last decade, many promising talents surfaced over the years and challenged the likes of Davido, Wizkid and Olamide for the pop throne—Kizz Daniel managed to remain relevant and largely successful in his own right, carving out a comfortable niche for himself and playing by his own rules.
How did he do this? By simply releasing, beautiful, timeless records that were so relatable and simple that it appealed to every one. His breakout song, Woju has a thematic resonance that extends beyond the primary younger demographic. In the song, he’s admonishing his lover and wailing that she’s being arrogant, instead of doing the right thing and loving him the proper way. It’s not your stereotypical pop banger that degrades women or has musings about the superstar life that would limit its audience. Kizz Daniel has always had that lock on every and anyone.
In 2020, he released his third studio album, King Of Love and like his preceding 2 LP’s it was a great album with thematic and sonic cohesion, that was even a major improvement on some aspects of its predecessors. However, it didn’t resonate well with the mainstream and generate hit records like a Kizz Daniel LP should. The music was good and Kizz was even ambitious with some of its topics with a writing style that had a lot more depth, but it wasn’t as easily digestible as his previous records. It’s no wonder why, just a year later, Kizz Daniel went back to his simplistic pop roots and found massive success with the Barnabas EP.
The EP was of course an experimentation that yielded great results and Kizz Daniel inferred the sort of music people wanted from him. It was this epiphany that birthed his 2022 hit run of Buga and Cough. Songs that were very simplistic in their sonic fundamentals, down to dated production and watered down hooks that made it appealing to older demographics. The songs might not have been great songs, but Kizz was right to have usurped that formular to generate momentum for himself. The mistake however is that he shouldn’t have dwelled in that head space for too long.
Rich Till I Die and Shu-Peru followed in 2023 and Kizz didn’t reap the same bountiful rewards on these new songs. The jury was already out on this formular and people had gotten wind of it and were even exhausted by its one-dimensional nature. This writer believes he should have stopped at 2 songs and gone back to making meaningful music, that was still very relatable. And this album does have some of that, however it has a lot of flaws.
The biggest problem of this album is in its sequencing. Everyone is privy to the short attention span of the Gen-Z demographic, so it’s imperative to catch their attention in the album opening sequence and hold it tight so they’re intrigued enough to digest the album in its entirety. In the opening 5 tracks of this album, we have 4 of its singles (the opener works more as an intro, than a standalone song) and that’s just simply unforgivable.
These singles have run their course and the general public have gotten wary of them. It doesn’t matter how resonant they were, starting the album with so many familiar songs is gonna wear the listener out. This is just basic lessons in Album Sequencing 101 and it’s actually jarring how an artist of Daniel’s magnitude can put out an album as poorly sequenced as this.
The album doesn’t pick up momentum until track 8, which although is a good song, it’s not necessarily the energetic song needed to buoy the spirits of an album moving at a drab pace, because said song, Feran You Two is an heartfelt ballad, where the singer is crooning about his love for his children featured on the track. It’s an heartfelt sentiment, but this song is one that should be used for slowing things down for a soulful breath of fresh air after a relentless, energetic sequence. Because of the poor placement, the emotional value doesn’t resonate as much as it should.
It’s a seamless transition from Feran You Two to Feran Mi, a song where Johnny Drille has one of his most forgettable guest performances ever. It sounds like an extension of the previous song in sentiment, only that the context of love is more romantic here and sonically, it’s midtempo mainstream pop. It’s not a bad sequence, but it shouldn’t be coming at such moment.
Complicated ft. Jahmiel, Nomcebo Zikode & Not3s has Kizz Daniel in his most dynamic pocket, especially in the opening 20 seconds of his verse and this should have been the song to pick up the momentum. The guest artists also do their bit and make a solid impression and things begin to look up for the album, until the next track totally obliterates any little momentum it might have gathered. E’better is one of those songs stacked with log drums and shakers, just to ride on the Amapiano wave but it just doesn’t come off because it’s forced and painful to the ears.
Blood Is Thicker picks up things again and it’s a bop that works in its simplistic form. The narrative isn’t as tightly knit as the previous tracks, and so there are some topical deviations in between verses but it’s sonically effective so it works. One Dollar ft. Blaqbonez is another dud on the album that destroys yet again, little goodwill that had been built by its preceding track. This song doesn’t do anything sonically interesting and Daniel sounds uncomfortable on the record. The production is the bane of this track and it’s shocking that Blaise Beatz who has been largely impressive in production cameos on other albums this year, was responsible for this.
So is the pattern again with the ensuing 2 tracks. Easy To Love ft. Chike picks things up and Pour destroys the budding moment. On the latter song, Kizz prioritizes catchiness over content by talking and rhyming lazily on the beat, and it’s something he’s succeeded at in the past, with songs like Yeba but it falls flat on Pour. There is no particular catchy phrase that sticks and his flows are not steady or rhythmic. They’re all over the place. Never and Anchovy aren’t bad songs, but they don’t do anything sonically memorable. Young Jonn is the highlight on Side Chick and he delivers on a hook that’s impressionable, but it’s not enough to salvage the album after so much mediocrity.
My G and Show You Off ft. Pryme are good songs that got lost in the noise of the poor, laborious album sequencing and invariably won’t make the mark it’s supposed to. The entire album sounds like an extended play of throwaway tracks from different albums that didn’t make the final cut, due to their lack of personality and sonic identity. Kizz Daniel has been one of the few mainstream popstars who understood the art of curating great albums, but on Maverick he doesn’t get it right and it results in his worst album yet.
Final Verdict:
Sonic Cohesion: 1.3/2
Unharried Transitions: 1.3/2
Expansive Production: 1/2
Songwriting: 1.3/2
Optimal Track Sequencing: 0.5/2
Total: 5.4/10
–This review is written by T.J. Martins, an ‘Album Talks writer.
