DORIME: AN INSPIRING STORY BEHIND GOYA MENOR’S DEBUT HIT SONG

Yinka Olatunbosun

Before Goya Menor’s first hit song “Ameno Remix” became a club or Tiktok anthem in December 2021, the original song performed by the French new-age musical project, Era had long been released in June 1996. It was popular in Europe and had at least three popular remixes over the years. DJ Quicksilver’s 2001 version of the song topped several European music charts; Vincent Niclo and the MVD Ensemble made another version that was popular in France in 2012. Fast-forward to 2021- June 16, Goya Menor and the US-based DJ Nektunez dropped yet another version “Ameno Amapiano” that became a global hit, peaking at number one on World Digital Song Sales Chart by the Billboard several months later. The song also reached number one position in Apple’s Top 100 Songs.

Before that success story, Goya was already giving up on music. His monthly studio recordings had not resulted in a smash hit. He had paid to even perform at shows. Sometimes, he was turned down even with his money in hand.

He almost quit music. But he became curious one day after listening to Ameno at the club. Ameno renaissance was linked to the meme culture where social media users use the song as a soundtrack to an emotional situation captured on video. Anyway, Goya decided to do his own little research and discovered that the song had been there for over two decades. After listening to it till the end, the next song was a track produced by DJ Nektunez and he was already matching the beat to the earlier song in his head. Then, the idea struck him: he could really sample the “Dorime” chant from the Ameno song with the DJ’s help.

At first, he didn’t think of it as a serious project or a comeback effort. But that was the thought that led him back to the studio that he had abandoned for a year. He reached out to Nektunez who subsequently produced the song. “I left it on Youtube,” he let on during an interview while on his recent Kenyan tour. “For the first month, it had less than a thousand streams. The first day I dropped the song, it was about 215 streams and those are my friends and family. I dropped it on Facebook. I would say the first person to comment on this song on Youtube gets a recharge card.”

He tried in his little way to promote it but it was far from igniting.

Three months after releasing the song, a fan reached out to him from Germany on Facebook. She told him how she had searched for him on Google and couldn’t find anything. The lady couldn’t have known that Goya was an up-and-coming artist, who had neither built an online presence nor has been signed by a record label. But he was quite popular in Benin, at least among his folks.

Goya has a powerful rap vocal strength which combines with the addictive beat to make a hit song. But he wasn’t even ready for the meteoric rise of the song. His female fan from Germany told him that his song has become popular on Tiktok. Goya wasn’t even on Tiktok at the time. Quickly, he set up an account at least to monitor the popularity of his song. He had to ask the fan how he could check to see the number of people that had used his song for their videos on Tiktok. The fan must have a killer instinct because it had only been used 500 times. But then, the figures grew gradually until it was two million. By the first week in December, the song was all over the club. And the catchy phrases “You want to bambam/ You want to chill with the big boys’’ made it such a rave. It was once pulled from Spotify and was later restored after satisfying the copyright requirements.

Goya’s remix took on a whole different meaning at the club. The clubbers turn it to an anthem or signature tune when someone is about to spend lavishly on the bottles. The moral lesson embedded in the lyrics was lost on many in the heat of the legwork. In the first verse, Goya plays the role of a father warning his son not to join a cult or get involved in any crime. But the son ignores the warning, joins a bad gang and is running from law enforcement agents. In the second verse, he advises the son that now that you have joined the bad gang and “You dey run kitikiti/ You dey run katakata/ You no fit drink water drop cup.” (meaning ‘You are running helter-skelter/ completely restless’). The father urges the son to turn a new leaf as God still gives second chances.

The Ambrose Alli University sociology graduate was raised as a Christian and this has a powerful influence in his career as an artist. Growing up in Ekpoma, he has first-hand experience of the impact of cultism on the young generation. Edo is seen from the media lens as a cultism capital. A case in point is the recent documentary on BBC on Black Axe. For Goya, an artist has to be socially-responsible, using the music medium to educate and entertain. His line “Say my pikin don go join cult” expresses the fear of every parent whose child has to leave home to be educated but succumbs to bad influence. Invariably, Goya’s Ameno remix is a product of the artist’s background and a treatise for societal reform which starts with parental guidance.

Goya’s song is not necessarily a hit because of this powerful message behind the song. It is a hit because of the artistry behind its formation and the emotion behind every punchline. His gravel-textured, gruff voice sounds very familiar- Goya must have been bingeing on DMX, Mystikal, Ja Rule, Busta Rhymes and Coolio. He brought that ‘dogg pound flavour’ into his rhymes, which was a mixture of pidgin English, Bini and English.

He is not in a hurry to release another song; he still relishes the success of his Ameno remix, touring US and UK on the wheels of a surprising hit song.