The world knows a version of the “Kante” story: Davido, the Afrobeats superstar, plucks a track from a rising singer’s catalogue, adds his golden touch, and a global hit is born. But in a candid new interview, Fave has revealed how close that song came to never happening.
And in doing so, she has given one of the most honest accounts of how collaborations really work in the Nigerian music industry — not as seamless magic, but as persistence, timing, and the quiet refusal to doubt yourself.
‘It Felt Like It Shouldn’t Be a Me Song’
Speaking about how “Kante” came together, Fave recalled the moment she finished the early version of the track and felt something was missing — not creatively, but structurally. She had written the first verse, the pre-chorus, and the chorus. The second verse sat empty.
“When I wrote Kante and recorded it, I had just the first verse and the chorus. The second verse was empty,” she explained. “So I sent Kante to about two or three artists before Davido. I actually made an effort, and I was like, ‘This song feels to me like I shouldn’t finish the song myself. It feels like it should be a collabo type of song.'”
The response was not what she hoped for. The artists she approached were not feeling it. The song, it seemed, would remain unfinished — or so it appeared.
But Fave did not panic. She did not rewrite the song to please anyone.
“I mean, I would never doubt myself when it comes to my music,” she said, with a quiet confidence that borders on conviction. “So I was just like, ‘Okay, cool.'”
Then Davido Called
The turning point came from an unexpected direction. Davido reached out — and his words, as Fave recalls them, were not the typical industry exchange.
“Davido hit me up, and he was like, he wants to come into my world,” she said. “Those were his words. And he wants me to send him a couple of songs that I have so he could see which one he’s really feeling.”
She sent him three or four tracks. He picked “Kante.”
“He did his verse on my already recorded song, and that was how that collabo happened,” she said.
It is a striking detail: Davido, one of the biggest stars in African music, did not ask her to come to him. He asked to step into her world. He listened. He chose. And in doing so, he validated exactly the song Fave had believed in all along.
The Honest Truth About How Collabs Work
But Fave did not stop there. In a rare moment of industry transparency, she also admitted that the “Kante” process — sending a finished record to an artist and receiving a verse back — is not her preferred way of working.
“I wouldn’t really say that’s my ideal way of collaborating because I would prefer to be in the studio with the artist, so we could just feed off each other’s vibe. I think that’s the best,” she said. “I noticed that most of the artists that I work with actually prefer to work that way. But sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes you have a finished album, and you’re like, ‘Okay, now it’s time for me to chase features.'”
She then drew a distinction that every recording artist in Nigeria will recognise: the difference between a song that needs a collaborator and a song that is meant to stand alone.
“Sometimes it feels like this particular song I want to finish all by myself, and it doesn’t matter if my A&R or my label feels like I should feature someone. It just feels like it should be a me song. So I feel like it just depends on what you want for that song.”
That is not the language of an artist being managed. That is the language of an artist in control.
From a Passed-Over Demo to a Global Anthem
The rest, of course, is history. Released on March 30, 2023, as the tenth track on Davido’s record-breaking fourth studio album Timeless, “Kante” became an instant fan-favourite — a smooth, infectious blend of Afrobeats rhythms and Fave’s distinctive dancehall-infused delivery, produced by Damie.
The numbers tell the story of a song that refused to be denied. Across all global platforms, “Kante” has now generated over 660 million total streams — a staggering figure for a track that three artists had once turned down.
On Spotify alone, it has crossed 195 million streams, and it holds a remarkable piece of Nigerian music history: over 1,300 consecutive days on the Spotify Nigeria Daily Top Songs Chart. To put that in perspective, that is more than three and a half years of unbroken chart presence — a level of consistency most songs can only dream of.
On YouTube, the official music video has racked up 83 million views, having crossed the 70 million mark in June 2026 and continuing to climb steadily. The remaining hundreds of millions of plays come from Apple Music, Audiomack, Boomplay, and Deezer, with the track’s Apple Music performance notably boosted by its inclusion on a very unexpected playlist.
When the King of England Chose ‘Kante’
In March 2025, something extraordinary happened. King Charles III curated an exclusive Apple Music playlist titled “The King’s Music Room” in honour of Commonwealth Day. Out of 17 globally selected tracks, Davido was the only Nigerian artist included — and the song he chose was “Kante.”
The British monarch revealed that he was deeply impressed by the track and developed a special connection to it because of its lyrics.
“It features lyrics in Pidgin, which I love in all its forms, and in which I’d attempted to make a speech when I last visited Nigeria,” the King said. “I understand that thanks to Afrobeats, it is becoming ever more popular around the world.”
Think about that for a moment. A song that three Nigerian artists passed on ended up on a playlist curated by the King of England, who was drawn to it precisely because of the Pidgin lyrics that make it so authentically Nigerian. If ever there was proof that cultural authenticity travels further than formula, this is it.
Analytics platform Chartmasters tracks the song’s Equivalent Album Sales at over 440,000 units from streams alone, making “Kante” one of the absolute pillars of the Timeless era.
The Lyrics That Made It Stick
At its core, “Kante” is a song about deep romantic attraction and devotion — the intense, exciting pressure of being infatuated with someone. The lyrics describe how a partner’s presence and movement influence the narrator, building toward a declaration of love and a desire to be together for life.
And then there is the line that turned a French footballer into a romantic metaphor for an entire continent:
“You move your legs like this, and that / It can drive away depression / Like Kante your skill is precious / You can change the whole direction…”
It is playful, it is clever, and it is unmistakably Nigerian in its wit. That is what the King heard. That is what 660 million streams heard. That is what three artists, sadly, could not hear.
The Visual That Closed an Era
In May 2024, the official music video arrived, directed by long-time collaborator Dammy Twitch and shot partly against the stunning backdrop of Intaba in Cape Town, South Africa. Vibrant, rhythmic, and full of life, the visual features high-energy group dance sequences against bright, modern architecture, intercut with more intimate, stylised scenes of the artists. Vintage, lo-fi aesthetic filters appear during specific dance clips, creating a nostalgic contrast to the main footage.
Davido himself noted that the release of the “Kante” video served as the official conclusion to the historic Timeless era — a beautiful full stop on a remarkable chapter.
A Lesson in Belief
What makes Fave’s story so compelling is not that a superstar picked her song. It is that she never doubted it, even when others could not hear what she heard.
Three artists passed. She kept the song and waited for the right person to step into her world — and the right person did.
That is the kind of story that should be told more often in the Nigerian music industry, where the pressure to chase features and follow formulas can sometimes drown out an artist’s own instincts. Fave’s account is a reminder that confidence, patience, and a willingness to hold onto a good song are not weaknesses. They are the difference between a track that gets lost and a track that crosses 660 million streams, lands on a King’s playlist, and refuses to leave the Nigerian charts for over 1,300 days.
Congratulations to Fave and Davido on a record that keeps giving. And to every young artist sitting on a song nobody else understands yet — take note. Sometimes, you are not wrong. The world just has not caught up yet.
