Across Nigeria’s burgeoning fusion-focused soundscape, Zinoleesky is one of those outliers giving the movement much of its hope. The young troubadour rose into wider attention a few years ago as one of street-pop’s most distinctive new voices, but his music has always stretched beyond that tag.

His instinct is rooted in indigenous expression, especially the ‘rubbery’ vocal character of Fuji, which he bends into a broader vision of Nigerian pop. Love songs, club records and moodier confessionals have all carried that identity. On “Yan Yan Yan,” the third track from his new Grit & Lust EP, that formula becomes as clear as glass.

Behind the record is Daniel Salako, professionally known as SKondtrack, whose production gives Zinoleesky’s familiar melodic language a slightly different frame. Zinoleesky has already found effective creative partners in producers such as Niphkeys, whose work on records like “Rocking” and “Call of Duty” has helped sharpen his amapiano-facing pop sound. “Yan Yan Yan,” however, presents another kind of chemistry. SKondtrack leans harder into the singer’s pop-soul lover-boy persona.

There is almost a Nigerian Bryson Tiller energy hovering around Zinoleesky at this point: the moodiness, melodic swagger and sense that the music and the man are gradually becoming inseparable. SKondtrack understands that persona, and his sleight of hand on “Yan Yan Yan” solves one of the more difficult problems in this kind of fusion: harmony.

Harmony here is not simply about making the groove catchy. It is also about tonal balance. Zinoleesky’s Fuji-shaped vocal phrasing is already highly melodic and ornamented on its own. Fuji itself grew from wéré and related Islamic-influenced Yoruba musical traditions associated with Ramadan, before Sikiru Ayinde Barrister helped transform those foundations into a modern popular form. This Fuji’s vocal tradition carries its own rhythmic authority where the voice often takes melodic lead even when the percussion becomes busy.

SKondtrack creates exactly that kind of room in this record. The amapiano environment underneath “Yan Yan Yan” is soft, spacious and almost private-school in temperament, while the percussion keeps enough grit to stop the song from floating away. During the chorus, Zinoleesky’s repetition of “yan yan yan” becomes more than a hook. The surrounding percussion is separated enough for his voice to begin functioning like another instrumental layer. His harmonies arrive with intensity without fighting the log drums, keys or low-end movement for attention. The result feels modern and urban, but the melodic logic remains unmistakably homegrown.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand the pair’s chemistry is through three qualities: catharsis, synergy and restraint. The catharsis comes from the looseness of the production. This is not the frantic amapiano of a packed club; the piano progressions are written to soothe, while the percussion nudges the body towards a dance craze without overwhelming it. There is a fluid drift in the song’s tempo and emotional temperature that makes the record feel easy to inhabit. Zinoleesky’s Fuji-inflected delivery only deepens that enjoyment, stretching syllables and melodies into the open spaces SKondtrack leaves behind.

The synergy is even more intriguing when one observes that neither performer nor producer appears interested in outdoing the other. When Zinoleesky pauses, the instrumental is allowed to simmer. When his voice returns, SKondtrack pulls the musical bed backward enough for the vocals to rise through the mix. At several points, Zinoleesky seems to be moving across stacked vocal planes: one phrase rises, another settles underneath it, and the harmonies create the illusion of simultaneous ascent and descent. Forget the technicalities, this is essentially the template for what the Western market tags sexy RnB-Pop — only that, this time, it’s marinated in Yoruba lingo, Fuji harmonies and South African drums.

Lastly, there is restraint. “Yan Yan Yan” understands that this kind of song does not need too much. Its strength is in what SKondtrack refuses to overcrowd. Minimalism sits in the spotlight, giving the percussion, piano phrases and vocals individual room while keeping them inside the same emotional frame.