Video: Zlatan Ibile's “Road to CDK” Full EP Review

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Video: Zlatan Ibile's “Road to CDK” Full EP Review

Zlatan “Road to CDK” EP Review- Omoniyi Temidayo Raphael, also known as Zlatan is a Nigerian professional singer, songwriter, indigenous rapper and dancer. He is widely known for his street friendly vibes mostly known as Lamba sounds. Zlatan released his major hit single ‘Zanku’ sometime in 2018. The single came with a new dance step known as the ‘Zanku dance’ and was a trending dance step in the country and beyond up until 2020.

Zlatan became more popular after his collaboration on Chinko Ekun ‘Able God’ in 2018 made the song one of the biggest tracks in the country in 2018. He later joined Burna Boy on ‘Killin Dem’ and had another monster hit with Naira Marley tagged ‘Am I a Yahoo Boy’.

In 2019, Zlatan Ibile dished out his debut album which he titled ‘Zanku’. The 17-track album featured Burna Boy, Davido, and other talented artists. He released the album under his own imprint ‘Zanku Records’.

On June 19, 2020, Zlatan released a mixtape of five songs featuring Zanku records act, Oberz, Papisnoop and Jamopyper tagged ‘Road CDK’. The 5-track EP is more like a compilation of his recent singles. The EP has already amassed over 7.5 million on audiomack.

The first song ‘Road to CDK’  is a hip hop sound that served as the intro track. With some additional vocals from Poco Lee, Zlatan returned to rap the game he left for commercial music. He did justice to this trap sound which he performed with Yoruba indigenous rap.

‘Suffer’ featuring Oberz is more like a prayer. Oberz recounts the sufferings his parents has been through and renders some words of prayers to God for blessings. The groovy strings in the beat make the sound flexible enough to entertain Zlatan Ibile’s rap flows. This is one of the great songs on the EP. It sounds spiritual.

‘The Matter’ is trendy and catchy. The afrobeat sound features Papisnoop. Zlatan and Papisnoop address all the recent issues happening within the country. This is obviously another commercial sound from the singer as he attempts to create another monster hit with the trending issues in the country. This could have been better if it featured Harrysong, the alterplate boss is known for this kind of concepts.

‘Unripe Pawpaw’ is the last song off the ‘Road to CDK’ and was released early this year as a single. The song featured , Jamopyper, Oberz and Papisnoop collaborates once more on this one. This is already a hit song probably because of the commercial nature of the sound and the Lamba vibe.

Finally Zlatan, Jamopyper, Oberz and Papisnoop join forces on a song. ‘Shomo’ was performed in Yoruba language. Only Yoruba’s could actually relate to this vibe, others will only appreciate the sound. To me, this is the weakest song on the mixtape. It’s neither commercial nor performed in a way large populations of the public will vibe to it.

RATING

PRODUCTION – 3/5

PERFORMANCE – 4/5

LYRICS – 3/5

AVERAGE RATING – 3.5/5