Every neighbourhood has a young man everyone underestimates. He is small and quiet, and one day he turns up in good clothes with money to spend. The people who wrote him off then have two choices: to congratulate him or to complain. Nigerian pop has built a whole genre out of watching them choose.

“Big Doings” is that young man’s entrance. Olaoluwa Oluwatosin Shoyebo wrote the lyrics and Dagizah sings every line, so no second voice softens the boast or answers back. The song has to persuade one performer’s nerves, and for the most part it does.

The hook is the opening line. ‘Sey una don see small boy, big doings’ makes a complete argument in a few words. You counted me out, so look again. It is also funny, in the way good street talk is, because it makes the listener admit the mistake. Verse 2 sharpens the joke with “Una very small like Shatta Bandle,” a dig at the doubters that references the diminutive Ghanaian internet sensation, socialite, and comic entertainer. It is specific, and specifics are what the rest of the song lacks.

‘I’m so sweet, just like pọnmọ’ is the best image. Pọnmọ is cow skin, soft and seasoned and loved in a pot of stew, and the comparison is cheeky, earthy and unmistakably Nigerian. It makes flirting sound like an appetite.

Shoyebo also does something clever with the repeated first verse. The first time round it ends on the pọnmọ line. The second time it closes with ‘See me sey I no be bọlọ’, I am no fool. Same verse, new last line, and charm turns into a warning. It is a small edit, but it shows he thinks about where a line is persuasive.

The chorus is the weak point. It is two rounds of ‘Òun ta mi o / Òun ro mi o’, with ‘Mari na, mari lo o’ carrying the point. The lyric sheet glosses that last line as having money in excess to spend. A chant is allowed to be thin, and this one is catchy, but it takes up a large share of the song to repeat what the opening line already said. The chorus also ends in a gap, since the final line is marked indecipherable, so part of the argument is missing from the page.

The subsequent verse doesn’t possess the sharpness of the earlier one. “Pull up in that Tesla gear” and “on a fugazee” are stock phrases from the flex record, and “Badman thing, I’m not lazy” is an odd fit for a song about being underestimated, since nobody accused him of laziness. The closing run, “Ẹyin e lọ ma tun rọra / Awọn ara bi nkan ra o,” is hard to follow and comprehend. It seems Shoyebo intends to chase rhymes instead of making intelligible lyrics.

The song finds it difficult to decide whom it is talking to. “Baby, don’t snub me” belongs to a man trying to charm, while “É dey pain dem ’cause I’m shining” belongs to a man settling scores. Both appear in the same stretch of lyrics, so the address wobbles between wooing and warning. A boast needs a clear audience, but Dagizah’s girl and rivals keep trading places in his heart. That’s too much confusion for him to handle.

The vague and unperceptive lyrics plague Wizkid’s song, “In My Bed,” off his album Ayo. His abrupt turn in ‘In My Bed’ (2014), from the album Ayo, is what Afrobeats fans remember most about the track. It starts as a high-energy love and dance song, with Wizkid sweet-talking a lover. Straight after the chorus, the romance drops. A rapid roll call follows from Nigeria’s powerful, wealthy and politically connected, each name chanted as ‘Eleniyan’, a person of influence.

The intention behind “Big Doings” is to portray success, regardless of the lyrical inaptitude to clearly convey the message. Shoyebo understands that the most satisfying kind of success is the kind people did not expect, and he writes that satisfaction in the language of the street, with Yorùbá and Pidgin doing the work English cannot. The opening line, the pọnmọ simile, and the reworked closing verse would make a short, sharp song. As it stands, a looping chorus and a loose second verse blunt them, and the song promises more than it delivers.