Nigerian artist Gaise Baba has spent 15 years arguing that gospel is a message rather than a genre. His 2025 single “No Turning Back II” took that argument from Nigeria’s gospel circuit to the Billboard US Afrobeats Songs chart, a United Kingdom arena tour, a self-hosted talk show, and a public dispute with Nigeria’s biggest music awards over category eligibility.
From Nigeria’s gospel circuit to a Billboard chart#
Born Akinade Ibuoye, the artist studied Economics before adding a Music Business programme at Berklee. His professional career began in 2010 in Nigeria’s gospel circuit. He approaches faith music as an industry to be built rather than a lane to stay in, using festivals, a podcast, and youth programming to widen the audience for what he calls Afrogospel, a sound that borrows Afrobeats’ rhythmic architecture and Yoruba, English, and Pidgin phrasing while keeping its lyrical centre on scripture and testimony.
That approach found its widest proof in May 2025, when “No Turning Back II,” a reworking of the hymn “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” with fellow artist Lawrence Oyor, became a viral hit. It debuted at No. 16 on the Billboard US Afrobeats Songs chart and topped YouTube Nigeria‘s most-viewed list for the year, while spreading into TikTok trends, secular playlists, and nightclubs.
Backlash and a familiar response#
The song’s reach brought criticism from Nigerian pastors. One preacher compared its intent unfavourably to the original hymn and questioned whether it carried the same spiritual weight. Much of the criticism also targeted Gaise Baba’s appearance: dyed hair and chains, a style closer to contemporary Afrobeats than to a church pulpit. He pushed back directly, saying he was less concerned with being judged on appearance than on character.
Asked whether the criticism changed anything, he said it did not, because it was not new. “My professional career started in 2010, and I have faced criticism almost all through it,” he said, describing years of being told his sound was “too cool, too wavy, too edgy for church.” What changed in 2025 was scale, not substance. “No Turning Back II” went global, and the same argument found a bigger room. His response remained: “My duty is to execute the assignment I have, not to explain it to those who do not understand it.”
Expanding beyond church spaces#
“Gospel is not a genre, it’s a message,” he said at a United States Consulate event in Lagos. His argument is that a song about drugs gets filed under whatever genre its beat belongs to, but a song about faith gets quarantined into a gospel category regardless of what it sounds like, treated as a subject rather than a style. He has repeated that framing often enough that it functions as both brand philosophy and theology.
He performed at the Afrimma Awards earlier this year and at Lagos Fashion Week last year, pointing to both as part of a broader project he calls “We Outside,” the name of a song and, in his telling, a movement. “This music simply has to go to spaces outside the church,” he said, describing the approach as expansion rather than compromise, “not about being hungry or desperate for clubs.” Asked whether reaching for those spaces has cost him a booking, a partnership, or an audience, he said: “If this drive and ideology has closed a door, then it was not a door worth being opened; if it has closed doors, it has also opened bigger doors, being true to this assignment has proven otherwise.” He could not recall an instance, and said criticism that reaches him is mostly online commentary rather than anything that has closed a door. “Churches are even embracing Afrogospel now because they see it is the sound of this generation,” he added.
Initiatives and platform#
His work outside music includes two initiatives:
- LightOut, a schools-focused advocacy initiative that uses concerts to reach teenagers on climate action, drug use, and cybercrime.
- ARAMANDA, an Afro-Urban arts festival now several editions deep across Lagos and Abuja.
Both treat Afrogospel less as a sound and more as infrastructure, a way to reach rooms and age groups that a straightforward worship record would not reach on its own.
In 2024, he launched Black Flame, a podcast that, in his account, told him he needed an audience beyond concert crowds, and took it on the road during a six-week United Kingdom debut tour that included a headline show at London’s Shaw Theatre and live tapings in Manchester and Birmingham. His publicly listed partnerships include the German and Netherlands consulates.
