WIZKID 'ESSENCE HITS THE TOP 10 OF THE BILLBOARD HOT 100 CHARTS THIS WEEK

Essence, the song by Wizkid, Tems and Justin Bieber which has been dubbed the global song of the summer has become the first African song to reach the Top 10 on Billboard Hot 100 chart. Wizkid earns his second Billboard Hot 100 top 10 with Essence, following his featured turn with Kyla, on Drake's 10-week 2016 #1 One Dance. Tems achieves her first top 10 with her first entry on the chart. She added her second charted title as featured on Drake's Fountains, which debuted at its #26 peak on the September 18.

This comes after it was announced that Wizkid's groundbreaking album, Made In Lagos, had hit one billion streams across all streaming platforms.

When Wizkid initially released his second major-label album on RCA, Made in Lagos, last October, it made a quick critical splash, riding its notable collaborations (Skepta, Damian Marley, Burna Boy, H.E.R., Ella Mai) and up tempo, breezy vibe to the top half of the Billboard 200. But it was almost a year before the album truly caught on in the United States, buoyed by its surprise breakout hit, "Essence," featuring rising Nigerian singer Tems, which has grown steadily in the past year until it finally reached the ears of Justin Bieber, who fell in love with the song and hopped on its remix, which was released in August.

While already making waves -- former president Barack Obama included the original on his list of his favorite songs of 2020 last December - Bieber's remix brought the song to a much wider audience and catapulted it up the charts. This week, "Essence" spends its second straight week at No. 1 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and climbs to No. 1 on Hot R&B Songs, a significant feat for a year-old song in an era of music that is often focused solely on what's new and what's next. And the song's success helps Wizkid's manager Jada Pollock earn the title of Billboard's Executive of the Week.

Here, Pollock talks about the song's crossover success in the United States, the complexities of crafting the right rollout that kept the song so relevant for so long and how Wizkid's sound is making a lasting impression on international audiences. "The album is truly a reflection of Wiz's growth as both an artist and an individual," she says. "There's a real energy in the music that people are connecting with."

Made in Lagos is purely good music. It's real and people are genuinely gravitating towards it, irrespective of space and time. There's something in the album for everyone and every mood. It was crafted by a real musician. Crafting a rollout for an artist like Wiz is a tactful process because every move has to be intentional solely for him and the music.