African Queen

Before "African Queen", 2Baba was one third of Plantashun Boiz, the trio he formed in 2000 with Blackface and Faze. After two albums the group broke up, he signed with Kennis Music, and on 1 January 2004 he released the song as the second single from his debut solo album, Face 2 Face. He and Blackface wrote the lyrics, melody and first two verses together, and OJB Jezreel, who produced the entire album, built it on gentle guitar strums. 2Baba has said he made it out of a wish to show love and respect to African women and to celebrate their resilience. The music video had its own small histories. It was the first video ever played on MTV Base, and the lead role went to Annie Macaulay, then a struggling model who, by her later account, had dated the singer before the shoot; the two married in 2013. The song spread across West Africa, Southern Africa and Europe, turned up in the 2006 romantic comedy Phat Girlz, and won Song of the Decade at the 2007 Nigeria Music Awards. Its authorship later became a dispute. In 2016 Blackface accused 2Baba and his manager of intellectual property theft, saying he wrote the song; 2Baba answered with a 50-million naira defamation suit, and the two settled out of court in 2019. 2Baba says its popularity has eclipsed everything else he has released, and in 2025 Billboard ranked it first among the greatest afrobeats songs of all time.