Interview: Davido on 5ive, grief, and global ambition

The artist also spoke movingly about family, loss, and resilience following the death of his son, sharing how fatherhood, faith, and the birth of twins helped him find hope again. With a global tour on the horizon and film projects underway, including an executive producer role and an upcoming documentary, Davido’s story is not only about chart success, but also about growth, healing, and the enduring power of music.

EBRO DARDEN: How does it feel being an African artist and you are someone who went to school in the States and toured Africa and toured the world prior to 2015 and now. So you can actually compare because you had music out when it was... y’all was just getting struggle... it was struggle. The struggle was real trying to figure it out to now, where when you show up somewhere and people know you're in town or you're selling tickets, you sold out the Garden, what's the... Talk about that feeling?

DAVIDO: I think just generally in life when good things are happening so quick, you don’t realise. I actually remember the first time I was sitting in front of my laptop opening Logic and sitting down like, ‘D*mn, I want to make it. I actually want to be a musician. This is what I want to do.’ Watching MTV Cribs, watching people go on tour. I was a big YouTuber. I used to watch YouTube a lot. I used to watch vlogs. Tour vlogs, so it’s like Soulja Boy vlogs, just people about just being popular and being a star. I used to watch all that stuff, so I saw it transition into reality for me. Do you understand? From the beginning, from showing my friends the culture, showing my friends like, ‘Come listen to this Nigerian music.’ And then, actually falling in love with the genre, falling in love with music, knowing that my family's not going to accept this, but I'll still do it anyway, not knowing that I’ll be one of the ones to pioneer it. Never imagined it here. Forget it. I’ll be lying to you. Never imagined it. So when things were just happening over time, we were just taking in the strides like, ‘Damn, this is getting lit.’ We sold out 1 000. We sold out 2 000. Damn, we sold out 30, 40... Yeah, so it’s never really... I feel like every successful person that attains a great level of success can’t explain the feeling. You know what I’m saying?

There’s a rumour circulating. Maybe you started it, I’m not sure. I just read about it that you and Chris Brown have like 20 songs done.

More. We could put out two albums right now.

And why hasn’t that happened?

It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. I’m just happy for Chris. I just feel like he’s back in his bag. You know what I’m saying? It’s 20 years. The Grammys last year, he just deserves everything. Everything just happened so fast for him. So I told him I was meant to go on this tour.

You on the Breezy Bowl?

Yeah. Breezy Bowl.

20 years of Chris Brown.

I know. Yeah. Probably going to pop up [at some shows].

Why he named his album 5ive

When I was looking for a title, I was like, I don’t want it to be too deep. I already had A Good Time, A Better Time, Timeless. And I was like, ‘You know what?’ And my boy was just like, ‘Just name it five, it’s your fifth album.’ And then after, I started reading on the number five. So after the fact, then I started reading on number five, symbol of hope, symbol of grace, change, growth. And it’s Angel number two. You know what I’m saying? So we just went with that.

You guys had severe loss in your family.

Crazy! You know what I’m saying? That type of loss made you just be like, ‘I’m out. I’m just going to chill, take care of my wife and take care of the family and get my head right.’ So just to come back from that and just... You know what I’m saying? To be blessed with twins out the gate, a boy and a girl.

That’s crazy. That’s great.

And the boy looks just like my son that passed. It’s scary. It’s like literally him. We’re like, ‘Nah, it’s him. He came back’ type stuff.

Yeah, that’s beautiful.

But yeah, just to be able to come back from that and just be happy. And then we had the wedding and then the album went crazy. It’s like, ‘Yo,’ it’s like, ‘God is real.’ You know what I’m saying?

That means you’re putting out positive energy into the universe, right?

Positive energy. I know I have so many friends that even after me, that went through loss too. And every time, the first thing I tell them every time, you know what I say? I say, ‘Bruh, if I could be okay, you're going to be okay.’ Man, you lost your mom or you lost your friend. So one of my friends recently just lost a trio of people and I was talking to her and I was like, ‘Yo, bro, if I can go through this, you can go through this.’ But the most important thing, I feel like family is very, very important. When you’re on the road and when you are attaining so much success, you know what I'm saying, you tend to forget the people that really have your back. So, I don't want to say like, ‘Oh, I’m happy I went through that experience,’ but it did teach me a lot of things.

What’s next for Davido including tour, producing, and a documentary

Yeah, we going on tour, man. US. Europe, Asia, Africa. And I’m saying we starting here in the US, definitely. And then, we go. So go get your tickets. And I got movies coming out.

Are you producing movies?

Yeah. I’m an executive, producing a movie and a series with my director, Dammy Twitch. Also, working on my documentary. So a lot of things.