Essentials: Asa's V perfectly merges her folk sensibilities with sleek Afrobeats.

In 2006, I watched Italy and France battle it out in the World Cup final. It is the first football match I clearly remember watching, and therefore the singular event I recall whenever anyone asks how I became a fan of the beautiful game. But I wasn’t the only one who began a journey in 2006. That year, Bukola Elemide, professionally known as A?a won the “Next-rated” award at the Headies, Nigeria’s most prominent music award show. At the time, she had released two singles “Fire On The Mountain” and “Eye Adaba” to instant acclaim and had a significant portion of the population singing her lyrics. Even my mother, whose music appreciation stopped at Gospel music or old Fuji tunes would belt the lyrics to “Fire on the Mountain” and proclaim that it was good music, “different from the rubbish that all these people are singing nowadays.”

Sixteen years later, a lot of growth has happened. In my life: I have watched a thousand football matches, seen players from that World Cup final become title-winning coaches; listened to, and fallen in love with a lot of the rubbish music that “these people sing nowadays.” In the same time, A?a has transcended borders, released classic and moving bodies of work, cementing her place as one of Nigeria’s greatest talents. A?a, Beautiful Imperfection, Bed of Stone, Lucid, V. The letter “V” has so many meanings across different fields. From astrology to chemistry, it is representative of so many emotions and states of being: Valentines. Velocity. Vanadium. Voltage. And for A?a, it is number 5. The fifth album with a fresh perspective on life and sound.