Olamide Is Reuniting YBNL, And Asake Is Not On The List

Entertainment

Lagos · Thursday 12 November 2026

Olamide will bring YBNL Nation artists back together at Future Fest 2026 in Lagos, with Adekunle Gold, Lil Kesh and Fireboy DML among those named. Asake, the label's biggest breakout of recent years, is not on the bill, and fans have asked why.

concert stage lights crowd hands Photograph by Vishnu R Nair via Unsplash.

The YBNL story in one table

Artist	What YBNL did for them
Lil Kesh	Street hits and a first national audience
Adekunle Gold	Launched with "Sade", now a global act
Fireboy DML	Built into one of Afrobeats' biggest voices
Asake	Signed in 2022, left in 2025 for his own label

Few Nigerian labels have launched as many careers as Olamide's.

Read the absence carefully. Asake left YBNL in 2025 to start Giran Republic, and he and Olamide have performed together since, including at Olamide's Wembley show. An exclusion from one reunion does not have to mean a falling-out. It may be scheduling, contracts or simply a celebration of the earlier era. Nobody involved has said.

A reunion is about who you were together. Fans will always notice who is missing from the photo.

Why the reunion matters anyway

Olamide built a label that kept producing stars from the street up, without the money of the big multinational deals. Seeing that roster on one stage at Future Fest is a reminder that Nigerian music's infrastructure was built by artists as much as by investors, and that is worth celebrating, with or without one name.

Reporting: Daily Post and Legit.ng.

Read next

• Davido Has Bought Israel DMW A 2026 Prado
• Lateef Adedimeji Says He Has Been Wounded And Shed Tears
• Ayra Starr Is Playing Coachella 2027

Gist is basically a national sport. The Gist Has Entered The Chat tee says it out loud, and the rest of the store is here. Naira pricing.