Davido pulls off one of ORIADÉ’s most ambitious pairings on “Yaya,” linking up with French-Malian superstar Aya Nakamura on the album’s tenth track.
This is not their first meeting. The two previously collaborated in 2018 – so “Yaya” is a reunion eight years in the making. Both artists have grown enormously since that first link-up. Davido went from regional Afrobeats star to Coachella headliner. Aya Nakamura became the most-streamed French-language artist on Spotify globally, with her “Destinée” album dropping in late 2025 still generating strong numbers. So when they return to each other in 2026, they bring far more weight than either carried in 2018.
The Afrobeats and French Afropop fusion has proven market reach across West Africa, Europe, and the diaspora. But “Yaya” earns its placement beyond just the commercial logic. Aya Nakamura blends zouk, shatta, and R&B into a sound that sits naturally alongside the warm percussion Davido works best over. So the stylistic gap between the two artists is smaller than it first appears.
Track ten is also a specific moment in ORIADÉ’s structure. The album has already moved through its emotional peaks with “Tell Everybody” and “Already Falling.” So “Yaya” arrives as the project’s most international statement – a signal that ORIADÉ is not just a Nigerian album but a global one. That positioning matches the song’s cross-continental identity perfectly.
Fans across Paris, Lagos, Abidjan, and London flagged this as the most exciting collaboration on the entire tracklist when it dropped.
Stream “Yaya” and tell us if this Davido and Aya Nakamura reunion was worth the eight-year wait – drop your verdict below!
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