Review: Friday Night is Lasmid’s big break

7 Sep 2022 - 10:12

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

The focus of ‘Friday Night’, the song that has driven Lasmid’s mainstream ascent, is revelrous. No surprise there: songs seeking easement into ‘Afropop province’ must soundtrack nocturnal social situations. Still, an unlikely party bounce and comedic impetus may yet have placed the song among great pop innovations from Ghana this year.

Lasmid’s single ‘Friday Night’ could prove to be the song that takes his career to the next level, writes the author. Photo: Manuel Photography

Lasmid first cracked nationwide notice in 2019 by winning the MTN Hitmaker reality show. While there, he stood out for his clever rap style and charged delivery. And though the man has issued records occasionally since then, it is ‘Friday Night’, angled toward hip hop and still managing to shelter a dance groove crucial to commercial success, that has secured him his first true taste of pop stardom.

All experimentation that triumphantly rebels against today’s Afrobeats mould, a global staple, deserves special kudos. In its composition, ‘Friday Night’ may have looked the opposite direction, but makes sure to harvest the foundational principles that have dictated Afrobeats – most notably, repetition and melody.

Repetition, in the sequence of the instrumentation and aspects of its lyrics, is crucial to the song’s charm and replay propensity. By themselves, the lyrics do not say much: Lasmid is, in his own eyes, the spark in the room, the focus of everyone’s attention. But by echoing the last syllables in the bars of the song’s pre-hook a few more times, he achieves a catchy trait. The song’s most exciting part, this bridge, leads into a rousing chorus that raises a toast to the start of the weekend. “It’s a Friday night oo hurray,” the chorus goes. At least two times in the song’s near-three-minute duration, this happens. Behold, an earworm.

‘Friday Night’ veers heavily toward the rap genre. However, its finesse is also guaranteed by the heavy deployment of melody. By opting for a melodic cadence instead of simply rapping the song’s verses, and laying them on the very tones of its guitar and bass motifs, Lasmid makes sure that the record is both interesting and easy on the ear.

Night scenes are a fixture in pop videos, even if often gratuitously – but not ‘Friday Night’. There can’t be many songs that script their own videos. For some strange reason, conceptually, the Xpress Philms production manages to fail the attendant video of the song (which was released last week, unceremoniously, on a Friday afternoon) – particularly in how poorly it portrays the themes of ‘Friday Night’, starting with how much of proceedings ensue during the day. The night scenes, when they finally arrive, achieve little. Instead of truly capturing nightlife on a weekend, which in these parts involves packed nightclubs, the video falls on local celebrities and social media influencers.

Lasmid should quickly move past the video’s blotches, aware that it is often the case for visuals for songs of this magnitude to pale. He is already looking forward. Promptly, he has issued another single, buoyed by the momentum of ‘Friday Night’. There are also whispers of an impending deal with one of the three major labels.

The enterprise of conspiring runaway hits will forever remain a mystery, and few are privileged enough to have harnessed one (or three). Every artist points to one song in their catalogue signalling their true international launch. ‘Friday Night’ is Lasmid’s.