In the bustling agora of 2025 Afrobeats, collaborations come and go, but some feel pre-ordained by the streets themselves. One such meeting is “Laho II,” the sequel-slash-original that drops Shallipopi’s Benin-City bravado into Burna Boy’s global echo chamber. Officially released at midnight on April 25, 2025 under Since ’93/Plutomania, the two-minute whirlwind already carries the aura of folklore: Burna insists his verse came first, the solo “Laho” was merely a stop-gap remix, and the internet is happily arguing over who owns the narrative.
Anatomy of the Beat
Producer Progrex keeps the BPM at a pocket-friendly mid-tempo, lacing airy log drum rolls with the kind of rubber-band bass that rattles okada mirrors. A cheap plastic whistle flickers in the background—blink and you’ll miss its homage to Edo street carnivals—while hi-hats skitter like restless danfo conductors. It’s minimal, but not sparse; every frequency band feels sprayed with confetti. The instrumental is built to leave space for two very different vocal grains: Shallipopi’s raspy, half-sung pidgin chants and Burna’s baritone growl, rich with reverb and ancestry. MPmania’s leak pegs the runtime at 2:00 flat—no bridges, no flab, just a revolving door of hooks.
Lyrical Cartography—Pidgin, Proverbs & Percentages
Shallipopi kicks in first, dancing between Edo, pidgin and playground taunts:
“Desperado, many many / My amigo, Balotelli / Ladies taking me photo — Confirm!”
It’s classic Shalli—football metaphors for social mobility, tequila for lubrication, a paparazzi flex to remind us he’s stepped beyond TikTok virality into real-world iconography.
Burna’s verse is equal parts warning and victory lap:
“Don’t get it twisted, na God be my witness / Money no like chó chó chó.”
The line, instantly meme-ified on X, has turned chó chó chó (empty chatter) into 2025’s freshest clap-back GIF. Embedded inside the swagger is a sly callback to Burna’s feud with industry gatekeepers: “Nor go give to Ceasar what belongs to Odogwu”—translation: stop demanding a tithe from my success.
The Social-Media Earthquake
At 2 a.m. Lagos time the hashtag #Laho2 hit number-one on Naija Twitter, while Apple Music NG tracked a debut at #26, jumping 68 spots in six hours. Fan cams from Burna’s sold-out Stade de France and Manchester Co-op Arena show both artists trading verses, Burna fist-pumping 50k Parisians as Shalli’s ad-libs ricochet off the rafters. A TikTok choreography—knees bent, palms slicing the air on the “Ghẹ gunmwẹn dẹ ọ, lahọ” refrain—has already spawned 40 K shorts in under 24 hours.
Yet the hottest gist is Burna’s Instagram PSA:
“If this ‘Laho’ was the remix, I’d go first lol. Na remix Shalli first drop; this here is the original.”
Fans are split: Team Shalli loves the underdog narrative of a street-born hit strong-arming a Grammy winner onto the remix; Team Burna frames it as mentorship—Odogwu handing the younger bull a global pass. Either way, the debate keeps engagement numbers deliciously chaotic.
Context & Consequence
For Shallipopi, whose first viral spark was 2023’s “Elon Musk,” “Laho II” is both graduation speech and territorial marker: the Plutomania CEO confirming he can pull A-list artillery without losing his Benin accent. For Burna Boy, fresh from the Wu-Tang infusions of I Told Them…, the track is a palate cleanser—two minutes of unfiltered swagger that reminds skeptics he can still mud-walk over a raw club beat without conceptual scaffolding.
More importantly, “Laho II” offers a blueprint for street-to-stadium pipeline music: short, unapologetically local in language, but sonically engineered for global playlists. In an era when Afrobeats is sometimes accused of smoothing its rough edges for export, this collaboration says, “Keep the edges; just amplify them.”
Verdict
Is “Laho II” profound? No. It’s pure vibe chemistry—a shot of Don Julio tossed back before last call—yet it lands because both artists wear their truths loudly: Shallipopi the brash Benin prince, Burna the elder statesman who still bodybags a pocket when he feels like it. The only complaint is its brevity; just as Burna’s growl thickens, the beat cuts. Still, replay value is through the roof, and every repeat spin is another data point for the charts.
If I Told Them… was Burna Boy’s thesis on legacy, “Laho II” is his field trip to the trenches—quick, noisy, unforgettable. And for Shallipopi, the track cements him as the mayor of Pluto who finally got the African Giant to visit his planet. Expect the ripple effects—TikTok dances, street-slang merch drops, and maybe a surprise Grammy nod—to keep rolling long after the whistle fades.
Oya, reload that stream.
