Alhaji Arems
King Dr. Saheed Osupa has quietly pulled off something few expected this year — he has overtaken King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, popularly known as K1 De Ultimate, to become the most listened-to Fuji artist on Spotify. As of the morning of November 8, 2025, Osupa leads with just over 241,000 monthly listeners, while K1 follows closely with about 237,800. It’s a slim margin, but symbolically powerful — a generational shift within one of Nigeria’s most enduring music traditions.
For decades, K1 has been Fuji’s defining figure — the genre’s global ambassador and the man who refined its street grit into elegant performance art. To see Osupa briefly edge ahead of him online isn’t a dethronement; it’s a reflection of how the Fuji audience is evolving. The streaming world operates by different rules, rewarding consistency, catalog freshness, and algorithmic engagement. In that sense, Osupa’s climb feels less like a surprise and more like a logical outcome of years spent maintaining digital presence while still feeding his grassroots following.
The figures themselves tell a layered story. Osupa’s 241,000 monthly listeners come from a blend of new singles, refreshed catalog tracks, and growing playlist placements — factors that keep his songs circulating far beyond physical markets. K1, on the other hand, has maintained steady streaming numbers rooted in long-term loyalty rather than recent release activity. Both artists command huge audiences offline, but it’s Osupa who seems to have cracked the digital rhythm of modern music discovery.
Adewale Ayuba, the Bonsue Fuji innovator, currently follows with roughly 83,000 monthly listeners, while Pasuma holds around 51,000. Other Fuji stalwarts like Malaika, Obesere, Taye Currency, and Remi Aluko complete a list that reflects Fuji’s layered ecosystem — still deeply Yoruba, still grounded in live performance, but now steadily migrating into the world of playlists, algorithmic radio, and global reach.
Osupa’s rise carries a deeper significance. Fuji was never built for the streaming model — its long tracks, improvisational vocals, and heavy percussion once seemed out of sync with the short attention spans of digital audiences. But the last few years have rewritten that assumption. As listeners explore more Nigerian genres beyond Afrobeats, Fuji’s textures are finding new resonance — both with diaspora audiences longing for roots, and with younger Nigerians rediscovering the classics through social media clips and curated playlists.
K1’s legacy remains unmatched; his innovation is what made the genre visible beyond its original circles. Yet the landscape is changing. Digital visibility now runs on momentum — and Osupa, through steady releases and active online engagement, has mastered the art of staying in rotation. His social clips, live footage, and catalog promotions all feed Spotify’s discovery system, keeping him in the ears of new and returning listeners alike.
Still, this isn’t a rivalry of crowns. It’s a moment that shows Fuji’s continued relevance in an era dominated by Afrobeats and street pop. The data simply proves what the culture already knows: Fuji never left; it just found new speakers. And in 2025, King Dr. Saheed Osupa stands as proof that tradition can thrive in transition — that a sound born in Oyo’s streets can still command the global stream, one listener at a time.