TIWA Ishaya - R.I.P

I first noticed R.I.P picking up steam when it started popping up on Boomplay playlists—people were sharing it not because it was the latest club banger, but because they sent it to friends with captions like “this hit different.” I wasn’t expecting that when I laid down the first vocal take.

When we were in the studio, the goal wasn’t to stack layers of percussion or chase the high-energy Afrobeat pattern everyone expects. The drums are trimmed back—shaker and low‑velocity kicks sit under a Sub 808 patterned bassline that almost mimics a slowing heartbeat. There’s a Yamaha Montage pad holding ambient chords, a Korg MS‑20 bass filter dipping into the minor key, and the Rhodes electric piano doing a lot of the emotional shading between phrases. I layered subtle vocal melismas over that simplicity so the phrasing feels like breathing, not performing.

This track isn’t like what I’ve done before. Earlier songs leaned into harmonic major progressions and call‑and‑response hooks that made them feel more celebratory. R.I.P flips that script: the tempo sits around 88 bpm, and the harmonic movement pauses enough to let silence be an instrument too. If you compare it to what X Blaze and Adaora Ugochukwu are doing right now in Nigerian Gospel—Blaze often uses highlife‑influenced polyrhythms and Adaora leans harder into urban contemporary with bright synth stabs and tempo shifts—R.I.P feels sparser. It doesn’t voice‑stack gospel runs or soaring adlibs; it stays close to the chest, almost conversational.

It’s resonating here in Nigeria because of where we are culturally. There’s been this collective exhaustion—economic pressure, loss in households, conversations about mental health that weren’t happening openly before. People aren’t just asking “Can you make me dance?” They’re asking “Can you speak for how I’m feeling when nothing feels alright?” R.I.P isn’t a funeral song; it’s the audio equivalent of a long exhale. That slower bass groove and the quiet breaks between vocal phrases give listeners room to think about their own losses without feeling rushed.

And yeah, people have told me it’s become a go‑to when they want something that mirrors real emotion instead of hiding it in 16‑bar punchlines. Some say it reminds them of my earlier work’s vulnerability but presented with fewer layers and a different rhythmic intention. In that sense, R.I.P connects like a conversation you have after midnight—unfinished, raw, honest—rather than a performance you attend.

That’s why this one is clicking right now. Not because it’s loud, not because it’s flashy, but because it holds space.