{"id":45211,"date":"2025-08-29T13:32:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/tiwa-savage-gets-vulnerable-ahead-of-this-one-is-personal\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T13:32:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:32:55","slug":"tiwa-savage-gets-vulnerable-ahead-of-this-one-is-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/tiwa-savage-gets-vulnerable-ahead-of-this-one-is-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiwa Savage Gets Vulnerable Ahead of \u2018This One is Personal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tTiwa Savage<\/a> takes our Zoom call from Tokyo<\/a> at around 7 a.m. local time, her voice sweet but groggy from having just woken up moments before. She had spent the past week in Japan for her son Jamil\u2019s tenth birthday. \u201cIt\u2019s both of our first time,\u201d she tells me of the visit. \u201cHe\u2019s never had a birthday party because all his classmates are always on summer break. So, for his tenth birthday, I was like, \u2018Oh, what do you want?\u2019 He said he wanted something to do with anime. I couldn\u2019t think of anything else but coming to Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the sort of luxury one of Afrobeats<\/a>\u2019 most influential women can afford her son after fifteen years shaping the sound of the genre, nevermind the fact that the trip lands the same week that she\u2019s releasing her fourth studio album, This One is Personal. <\/em>It\u2019s a searing confessional Savage wrote out of a real-life heartbreak that she says amounted to a \u201cspiritual attack.\u201d She\u2019s brave and bold in both singing and talking about it. So, between a few professional obligations, such as this interview, her tight-knit team \u2013 essentially a family to young Jamil \u2013 made plans for them to visit places like Tokyo Disneyland and Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan. \u201cThey know that I have to be a mom first,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis One is Personal<\/em> is a testament to Tiwa\u2019s deserved longevity, and now that the singer-songwriter is 45 years old. It captures her ability to evolve authentically in a culture both obsessed with and vile towards women. With her signature blend of Afrobeats<\/a> and R&B, Savage has written for Monica, sung backup for Mary J. Blige, and lent her vocals to Whitney Houston\u2019s final album, credentials that shine across the throwback soul flavor of her latest work \u2013 <\/em>she\u2019s an icon that charted a path for women in Afropop. Nigerian singer Ayra Starr<\/a> is of her lineage, as the younger act has taken on the mantle of leading lady at Savage\u2019s former label, Mavin, which is also home to Afrobeats superstar Rema<\/a>. Tems<\/a>, Tyla, and Amaarae<\/a> are also, in many ways, of her progeny, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tSavage has the cuts and bruises to show for this, having been maligned for her sensuality, risqu\u00e9 fashion (which, at the time of her breakthrough, she says, was clothing like\u2026denim shorts), her divorce from Jamil\u2019s father, and a leaked<\/a> sex tape. Some challenges she\u2019s faced adjacent to Nigeria\u2019s music industry have been more personal. In January 2024, Savage filed a police complaint<\/a> in the Lagos State city of Ikeja against fellow Afrobeats veteran and former friend Davido<\/a>, alleging he had threatened her. \u201cHe has also told our mutual connections to warn me to \u2018be careful in Lagos because he was going to f\u2013k me up,\u2019\u201d she wrote, saying that his alleged harassment began because she shared a photo of herself and Sophia Momodu, the mother of his first child, on Instagram. Unbeknownst to her, Savage tells me, the two were engaged in a conflict over custody, which, in an interview this spring, Davido explained he wanted Savage\u2019s support for while visiting the popular radio show the Breakfast Club<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, wow. I vowed never to speak about this,\u201d Savage says when I ask her what she made of Davido\u2019s recent remarks on the issue, with him telling the Breakfast Club that, \u201cThere\u2019s no bad blood.\u201d He added that they hadn\u2019t seen each other of late, but that Savage had reached out. \u201cI love her,\u201d he said. \u201cI love her child. I saw him grow up. She\u2019s an amazing person. She changed the game for females. She\u2019ll always have that respect. That\u2019s my sister. I would never let nothing happen to her.\u201d Savage is still shaken. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel threatened. I was<\/em> threatened,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was a very hurtful thing for me because yeah, I was being dragged into something that really wasn\u2019t none of my business, and the only thing I was doing was just being respectful to the mother of my son\u2019s friend. It wasn\u2019t taking sides or anything because I didn\u2019t even know there was anything to take sides on.\u201d She says there hasn\u2019t been a reconciliation.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThis One is Personal<\/em> is defined by the kind of unwavering earnestness that she approaches such sensitive subjects with, and the tenacity, too. Here, Tiwa goes deeper on the making of the album, that rift with Davido, her controversial choice to perform at King Charles\u2019 coronation<\/a>, and what she wants for women.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn <\/strong>This One is Personal<\/em><\/strong>, it sounds like you\u2019re reflecting not just on one romance or love, but love over the course of a lifetime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe album really focuses on what I really went through in the last two years. It was a very, very dark period for me. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been vocal about stuff like that. It was really hard for me to get over this particular period. There\u2019s a song there called \u201cYou\u2019re Not The First (You\u2019re Just The Worst)\u201d meaning, of course, I\u2019ve gone through disappointment and heartbreaks before, but this particular one was really, really hard for me. And even the subsequent events that happened after were interesting too. I have a song, \u201cTwisted,\u201d where [I\u2019m] talking about being toxic. That was after the breakdown of this particular relationship that I\u2019m talking about. I ended up being the toxic one and I was looking at myself like, \u201cYo, why are you acting like this? This isn\u2019t you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat made that relationship so devastating and so impactful?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTo be honest, I still don\u2019t know. For some reason, this one, it was just different. It felt more like such a strong spiritual attack. I know it\u2019s deep to say that. It really felt like this relationship was intentional to destroy something in me. It didn\u2019t feel just like, \u201cOh, it was just a heartbreak.\u201d It felt like I was heading towards something and then this thing came to really distract me or break me down. It wasn\u2019t even just about the relationship. It felt like a lot of things around me were just crumbling based on it. I withdrew from a lot of my childhood friends, from a lot of my team.<\/p>\n

\n\tI would do things that I wouldn\u2019t normally do. I wouldn\u2019t let people know if I was traveling somewhere. There\u2019s a song there featuring Skepta called \u201cOn The Low,\u201d because I wanted to protect it so much. I didn\u2019t want people to find out who I was seeing, and at this time I really, really wanted it to work. So literally, every single song was about it.<\/p>\n

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