When Winky D announced his latest album launch at HICC, there was instantly wide spread anticipation. For the 5,000 or so who would witness the album performed live for the first time at HICC and across the greater population for what the album would hold. For one of the greatest artists of his generation such a widespread feeling was to be expected. Eureka! Eureka! was the project everyone had waited for, for 3 years.
Winky D‘s last album had been Njema, released back in 2019. From around the 25th of December last year, people were expectant the album would be released any moment. After all Winky D had often done that in the past and how can they be a concert for an album no one’s listened to? Yet the days continued to pass by and well and behold, Winky D had an album launch concert for songs no one had heard before.
The next morning everyone thought, surely now the album would be there. But no matter how many times you refreshed the page, it remained the same. I found myself thinking his management had slept on the job. Yet everyone would soon find out it was a deliberate play. The tap flowing with the artistry of his latest creation was open to just a trickle. The first day after the launch we would only get 2 songs. Available exclusively on YouTube.
It would first seem like we’re getting a song released every hour, only for us to realise that no more would be forthcoming beyond the two that night. The frustration with the process of an album coming a trickle at a time would be widespread. Yet while many expressed frustration, others would see the genius of the rollout and a few would throw around comparisons to what Kanye West did with the release Donda.
A few insinuated he had done an exclusive deal with Gateway Stream for his latest music. But I made an account on Gateway only to find that not to be. Others would say the lack of availability was a tactic to raise the desire to attend live shows.
One thing I would like to first applaud, is how this project has been seemingly immune to leaks. For an album of this magnitude that seemed near impossible. But so far no track has been released before it’s moment and credit to his management for achieving that. Now to look at how this strategy might’ve helped or hurt him.
Pros
Every track is being allowed to have it’s moment. It might not be everyone who listens to an album one single at a time but the slow release has to some extent allowed each song to have its time to shine. Discoursed has raged one song after the other, making it less likely that any one song would just be forgettable. Even though you can never completely stop some songs from being overshadowed.
The strategy has also afforded the album greater attention. From simply the arguments on whether the slow is good or bad, to the conversations ignited by each, Winky has managed to trend continuously for almost a week now. More people have talked about the project and each song is like firewood being fed into the flame.
Winky D has also set himself apart from other artists. Being original or an innovator, is something that is always attractive to fans of any art and Winky’s current is something strikingly unique. It helps to sell more the Winky D brand by making it different from the crowd.
Cons
While Winky D has always had his biggest numbers in terms of streams on the YouTube platform. His current strategy robs him of streams in other avenues. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and so forth are mostly still waiting. Some of the potential streams he could’ve earned across those platforms are lost and may never be regained.
Fans of the artist have also been left feeling disappointed. Setting a date for launching an album and then in some regard not delivering it, leaves many feeling hard done. It might only be an extra week’s wait for the music to be available but then the anticipation would’ve died down.
The essence of an album as a complete work of art is somehow when it is released one song at a time. An album is a project, that generally tells a story from beginning to end and getting one song at a time conflicts with this listening experience. But if Winky D meant for it to be listened to in that distorted manner then maybe this isn’t as much of a con.
Phil Chard also wrote an interesting thread on Twitter discussing the pitfalls of Winky D’s current strategy.
This Winky D rollout is probably one of the worst rollouts from an A-List artist I’ve seen. And there’s been some incredibly bad rollouts in recent years. The wild thing is he does the hard things that most artists could never do; • Selling out a show for music nobody has heard yet • Ensuring music and information about the collaborations doesn’t leak • Getting all the collaborators to pitch up for the show and deliver. Yet after all that hard work he fumbles delivering the project to his distributor early, getting playlisting, ensuring his incredible stretches beyond his core fanbase. You get paid once for a show. You get paid for the rest of your life for your catalogue. Not maximising first week streams and downloads diminishes the value of your catalog. Winky fans. I am one of y’all. I love that man and seeing him limiting his own career hurts. He came out before Patoranking, Stonebwoy, Redsan and he can outperform them. He’s a world class artist with regional appeal. That should upset all of us. We should want better for him.
In conclusion however, this rollout is something I’ve never seen done before. The streams might multiply due to the conversation, fans might see past their frustrations because they waited three years for this or the albums numbers might fall below expectation because people couldn’t find it when they wanted it the most. His fans are screaming it’s genius but for now, it looks too me like it’s not so much.
