Joeboy has opened the door to his next project with a nod to one of dancehall’s most famous rhythms. “Pretty Girls”, released on Friday 6 November, is the first song from his Lavida Boy EP, which is due on 20 November.
The Nigerian singer’s team describe it as “a sweet one for the gyal dem”, built on inspiration from “the ever popular diwali rhythm”. “Pretty girls is a song for girls who love to have fun and are true to who they are,” they wrote alongside the video, which drew close to 58,000 views in its first day.
Joeboy and the Diwali riddim
The Diwali riddim, produced by the Jamaican musician Steven “Lenky” Marsden, powered a run of dancehall hits in the early 2000s, among them Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” and Wayne Wonder’s “No Letting Go”. Its handclap pattern is one of the most recognisable sounds in Caribbean pop.
Bringing it into Afropop suits Joeboy, whose songs have always been about romance first. As his team put it, he “stays true to his core subject matter”: women.
What we know about the Lavida Boy EP
Lavida Boy arrives on 20 November through Young Legend, the label Joeboy launched in 2024 in partnership with Warner Music Africa. “Pretty Girls” is the only song revealed so far, and the rest of the tracklist is still under wraps.
The title continues a thread from his 2025 project Viva Lavida. He also released Agaba Romantic earlier this year, and the single “100 Meters” in March.
From “Baby” to Young Legend
Joeboy, born Joseph Akinwale Akinfenwa-Donus, started out as a rapper before a 2017 cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” caught Mr Eazi’s attention and brought him into the emPawa Africa programme.
“Baby”, recorded in about 45 minutes in 2019, went viral on the back of a low-budget visualiser and has since passed 98 million views on YouTube. “Beginning” followed, then the albums Somewhere Between Beauty & Magic (2021) and Body & Soul (2023), home to “Sip (Alcohol)”. He won Best Artiste in African Pop at the 2019 AFRIMA awards.
Seven years after “Baby”, “Pretty Girls” shows him still doing what made him famous: light, melodic love songs, now on his own label.
