Top five female singers of 2016: Why they were picked as the best.

As the year has finally ended, music pundits have selected these female singers as the best for year 2016 based on their performances. The singers are, Aramide, Simi, Sheyi Shay, Tiwa Savage and Yemi Alade. Considering their impacts and achievement in year 2016, they worked to be picked as the best female singers.

Aramide

Earlier this year, the ‘Funmi Lowo’ singer took the entertainment industry by surprise when she won the Best Female performance category at the Headies and she was hosted in Calgary, Canada on September. Her latest single ‘Love Me’ featuring ‘Orente’ crooner, Adekunle Gold, has topped various music charts in the last quarter of the year 2016 thereby giving her the opportunity to clinch the Alternative Artiste of the year 2016 in the annual Nigerian Entertainment Awards (NEA). She is not new when it comes to winning awards in Headies as her award-winning single, ‘Iwo Nikan’, which she released on February 4, 2015, under the Baseline Music imprint. The single, which talks about unconditional love, was instant hit as it opened doors for her and the music label. The song fetched her Best Vocal Performance at the Headies Award 2015. Presently she has two nominations in this year’s Headies.

Simi 


Despite delving into the Nigerian music industry as a gospel singer, Simisola Bolatito Ogunleye, aka, Simi has proven to her numerous fans that she is an all-rounder. Her musical career came into limelight in 2014 when she released “Tiff”, a song from Samklef production and since then, she has never left any stone unturned in her quest to make her own point. Though the rumours of her romance with singer Falz is seriously gathering momentum, the singer has not been deterred by that as she got three nominations in different categories in the Headies award 2016. 

Seyi Shay 

Seyi has been knee deep in music since she was a kid. She started performing at the tender age of 6 and was part of her secondary school choir. She performed for the London Community Gospel Choir during their world tour which spread across 13 cities in Japan and won her critical acclaim. Earlier in the year, Exquisite Magazine released the Nominee list for the 8th edition of the, Exquisite Ladies of the Year (ELOY) Awards, which saw, Seyi Shay, Tiwa Savage and Yemi Alade as Nigerian female singers that made the list. She also performed at the AFRIMA 2016, were she got some nominations and she also bagged nominations at the Headies 2016. 

Tiwa Savage 


Though along the line this years, this singer was almost laid back because of her marriage squabbles with her husband, Tee Biltz, she failed to be stopped as she kept doing what she knows how to do best. No doubt Tiwa had an eventful year with so many award nominations, singles and deals round her belt. She performed on most of the biggest stages round the world this year. The singer was nominated under the category of the Best female singer in the MTV Base award this year alongside Yemi Alade. But on the night of the awards, only one of them emerged the winner and that was Yemi Alade. To some fans and commentators, it was a travesty for her to win the award for the second year running. 

Yemi Alade 

Since she released her single, “Johnny” this award winning singer has been having her good time in the industry. Even music pundits have said that ever since Tiwa Savage took a break to have her baby, Yemi Alade’s career has been on the rise. She has worked very hard to replace Tiwa as the number one female star in Nigeria and perhaps Africa. It appears the international media has agreed to this, judging from a recent interview published by Fader magazine In a recent feature article/interview, international magazine Fader named Yemi Alade as the queen of Afrobeats. For those confused at what Afrobeat Fader is talking about, it is not the genre of music made popular by the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Instead, Afrobeats is a new tag given to the new type of songs being made by Nigerian musicians and their colleagues from other countries. In the just concluded MTV Base award, Yemi beat Tiwa to win the award.