Asake brought M$NEY to the stage for the first time since its May release, performing the album in full at an invite-only Spotify event inside London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Sunday, June 21.
The show was not open to the public. No big announcement, no open ticket just an intimate evening built around the first full live run of M$NEY, with Spotify filming everything for a concert film due on the platform in the coming days. The audience was made up of friends, family, and a select group of Asake’s highest-streaming Spotify listeners in the UK.
A Stage Built for Something Else
There are few venues in London as synonymous with artistic excellence as Theatre Royal Drury Lane. For centuries, its stage has been home to world-renowned musicals, Shakespearean productions, opera, ballet, and orchestral performances. Putting an Afrobeats show in that room was a deliberate statement.
Before the performance began, guests gathered throughout the theatre’s magnificent interior, capturing photographs along its sweeping staircases, while admiring the breathtaking paintings of artist Maria Kreyn, whose works inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet adorned the historic building.
When the set began, the venue’s scale worked in the music’s favour. The intimacy of an invite-only crowd inside a grand West End space gave the night a texture a stadium run cannot replicate.
What Happened on Stage
Asake moved straight into the material, letting the live band carry the weight. The album’s signature blend: melodic hooks over Afrobeats rhythms, Yoruba phrasing, and that direct emotional deliverytranslated differently with real strings and horns underneath it.
“Forgiveness” was one of the clearest standouts of the night. The crowd fully locked in; nobody staying seated, bodies moving, voices carrying the hook. The song’s plea for consistency and grace landed heavier with the full band and the room singing it back at him.
“Gratitude” got the biggest production treatment of the set. A choir and band swelled behind it, turning the track into something closer to a communal statement than a single song. Other album cuts performed included “Worship”, “Why Love”, “Wa”, and “Rora”, each given room to stretch under full live arrangement.
By the final act, Asake had become much like the conductor standing before an orchestra, guiding every crescendo, every pause, and every emotional shift with remarkable control. The evening closed with one final dance shared between artist and crowd before Asake repeatedly bowed alongside his orchestra in appreciation.
Four Unreleased Songs
Four unreleased tracks were slotted into the set without breaking the flow. Some carried the same melodic directness as the album; others felt like testing ground for whatever comes next, with talks of a possible M$NEY deluxe. The crowd treated them the same way they treated the released songs, staying locked in.
Whether those songs surface on a deluxe edition or remain exclusive to the concert film is still unclear, but their inclusion made one thing obvious: Asake is not done with this era yet.
The Bigger Context
The show did not need to happen for the album’s sake. M$NEY topped streaming charts in more than 19 countries and peaked at No. 8 in the United States. It broke Spotify Nigeria’s opening-week streaming record with 37.5 million streams in six days. The numbers were already in.
What the London show did instead was shift the conversation. Without changing the identity of the genre, the setting revealed another dimension of it — one where live instrumentation, theatre, and storytelling elevated the emotional weight of Asake’s music while not sacrificing its unmistakable energy.
The full concert film is set for release on Spotify in July. Asake heads into his In God We Trust World Tour later this summer with this night as the previr. the big stages are coming, but this one was for the people who had already put in the hours.