Laycon’s come-up and rise to mainstream fame and success is very impressive, from being a relatively unknown personality in the entertainment industry and on social media to having one of the most dedicated fanbase on the continent, identifying themselves by his Icons moniker to having one of the top albums in the country in “. . .Shall We Begin. . .”, the rapper, singer and reality TV star keeps telling his story by means of music and his self-owned “I Am Laycon” show on ShowMax. Laycon was interviewed by Joey Akan, a writer for Afrobeats Intelligence on his journey thus far and his future goals in music and life in general.

One of the things he shed light upon is the relevance of always attaching a timeline and storyline to each of his projects, he has four projects to his name, two EPs and two albums—”Young, Gifted and Black”, “Who Is Laycon?”, “. . .Shall We Begin. . .” & “I Am Laycon”—released in chronological order. “‘Cause for me, I feel like I can put out a project and just put out songs. But for me, you have to kind of listen to this one and say ‘am I missing something? Let me try to understand what the guy said here.” Laycon says regarding putting projects out as opposed to the usual way of testing the waters by releasing several singles to know what exactly the music market demands in terms of listenership.”“Who Is Laycon?” now that we know who Laycon is. That one is like a no-brainer for me, that I had to continue that. Now that we know who Laycon is, it’s “Shall We Begin?” That’s something I’m very intentional about.” Laycon further adds.

Laycon says the initiative of having a timeline and storyline attached to his projects is a concious mental process, “I would put out a project to explain a journey so that when you see my discography eventually, you’d be able to understand that this was where this guy’s state of mind was.” he sums up in a nutshell.

When Nigerian R&B singer, Tems, serenaded listeners on the hook of the crossover hit single—”Essence”—to the “You don’t need no other body” words, she indeed might have meant it in the relationship and/or sexual context but those words, those lyrics have gone on to have a life of their own outside the contextual or colloquial insinuation. This is very evident with the records the track keeps amassing, creating some in the process. The week starting 12th Ocotber (according to Billboard’s known style of uploading their weekly updated charts on Tuesdays) will see the pair of Nigerian Pop and R&B acts, Wizkid and Tems create a groundbreaking statement no other Nigerian artistes has ever made—the remix to “Essence” will make its debut on The Billboard Hot Top 10.

“Essence” was initially released almost a year ago, October 30th to be precise as part of Wizkid’s fourth studio-album, “Made In Lagos” and it soon became the rave of town both home and abroad, even being teased as one of the topmost songs of the summer 2021; its remix however came some ten months later, on August 13th, featuring American popstar, Justin Bieber.

Some few weeks later, the remix debuted on The Billboard Hot 100, even making it to the Top 20, peaking at No. 13, a record for any Nigerian song and artiste(s) at that time; this time around, it moves three spots upward to the No. 10 on the chart, becoming the first Nigerian song to make an entry into the Top 10 of the prestigious Billboard Hot 100 chart, invariably making both Wizkid and his featured guest, Tems, the first pair of Nigerian acts to have a song reaching that high on the chart usually dominated by American artistes and songs reigning in the USA. A historical moment for Wiz, Tems, Nigerian music industry and Africa at large.

Actor, body builder, motivational speaker, businessman and now rapper, Dwayne Johnson known as The Rock (since his WWE days) features on Tech N9ne’s latest album, “ASIN9NE”, on the sixth track—Face Off—on which he spits some bars on being undefeatable and focusing on the drive to becoming a successful and strong man that he is today, “It’s about drive, it’s about power, we stay hungry, we devour / Put in the work, put in the hours and take what’s ours / Black and Samoan in my veins, my culture bangin’ with Strange” he begins with, a nod to what keeps him so determined and acknowledging his roots for playing a major role in who he has grown to become.

why tf is the rock rapping brah pic.twitter.com/QZ5YZIL2le

— mariano 🦦 (@oscos) October 9, 2021

One would assume everybody loves The Rock based off of his social media presence and movie roles he’s taken upon, although a strong-built man by appearance, he exhibits jovial characteristics that make him so beloved among fans worldwide but some users of Twitter want nothing to do with this latest rap venture he delved into, claiming he just isn’t built for the rap game, others claim he sounds too generic with the funniest of the lot, those who respond with memes of paper or make suggestions of paper when someone asks ‘who gon stop him?’.

The rock-paper-scissors game is a classic long-standing game where the players use hand to suggest the items involved, knuckles all clamped together for ‘rock’, peace sign i.e both the index and middle finger for ‘scissors’ and the palm (all fingers spread out) for ‘paper’. Rock smash scissors, scissors cut paper, and somehow paper covers rock, hence the point of the joke by the Twitter users who use the paper as pun to the only item that can stop The Rock at this point.

Check out the tweets below:

List of people who gon stop him pic.twitter.com/O8XIz2oWrw

— Luno💎 (@LunoWyd) October 10, 2021

beat this mf pic.twitter.com/MzbFXwESWS

— Magic (@magic__huh) October 10, 2021

He ain’t gonna be tough for longer pic.twitter.com/pkLKToVaNr

— Matteo Fabrizi (@FabriziXT) October 10, 2021

I know someone who can 📄

— 『Indigo』of the pumpkin patch (@FoolPlanet) October 10, 2021

He acting all tough til this nigga come along pic.twitter.com/ytOUjUcpWf

— Zhawk129 (@zhawk129) October 10, 2021

You can watch the full video to “Face Off” by Tech N9ne featuring King Iso, Joey Cool and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson below: