5 August 2026
Words by Ralph Okobz
In the churning currents of 21st-century Afrobeats, few figures have exerted as decisive an influence on the genre’s texture and temperature as Kareem Olasunkanmi Temitayo, better known as Magicsticks. The producer, sound engineer, and DJ has engineered a sound that feels both rooted in the streets of Lagos and irrepressibly borderless. His producer tag, “Tune into the King of Sounds and Blues,” is a mission statement for an artist who has spent the better part of a decade refining a palette of log drums, choral swells, fuji inflections, and amapiano-adjacent bounce into something unmistakably his own.
Magicsticks’ journey began in the shadow of loudspeakers. His father, a professional DJ, immersed him in music from birth. After an early phase behind the decks, he transitioned into production, honing his craft at Lagos State Polytechnic while quietly building a reputation in the city’s underground. By the late 2010s, he was contributing to projects such as Kizz Daniel’s No Bad Songz (2018), but it was DJ Neptune’s “Nobody” (featuring Mr Eazi and Joeboy) in 2020 that served as his true arrival. The track’s sleek, infectious energy topped charts across Nigeria and announced a new precision in Afrobeats’ pop-leaning wing.
Yet it is his symbiotic partnership with Asake that has defined, and been defined by, Magicsticks’ most consequential chapter. The two first connected in 2020 through comedian Sydney Talker, initially for mastering work on “Lady.” What followed was alchemy. “Mr Money” and “Omo Ope” (the latter featuring Olamide) arrived like dispatches from a new Lagos sound. When Asake’s debut EP Ololade dropped in early 2022, followed by the full-length Mr Money with the Vibe later that year, the scale of their achievement became clear. Magicsticks produced, mixed, and mastered every track on the latter album, a Herculean display of sonic coherence. The project debuted at No. 66 on the Billboard 200, topped charts in over 30 countries, and quickly assumed the status of a modern classic.
Critically and commercially, Mr Money with the Vibe was a watershed. Magicsticks’ productions fused streetwise urgency with club-ready euphoria: thunderous percussion, emotive choral layers, and samples that nodded to Yoruba musical traditions without ever feeling archival. Tracks like “Peace Be Unto You (PBUY),” “Terminator,” and the Burna Boy-assisted “Sungba (Remix)” became generational anthems. The producer’s ability to elevate Asake’s sometimes skeletal songwriting into immersive, sensorially rich experiences proved decisive. Where other Afrobeats albums can feel like compilations of singles, Magicsticks created a world, one you could inhabit from start to finish.
Subsequent Asake projects, Work of Art (2023) and the more recent M$NEY (2026), have seen Magicsticks share production duties with collaborators such as P.Priime and Blaisebeatz, yet his fingerprints remain the dominant force. Songs like “Gratitude,” “Forgiveness,” and contributions to the Wizkid and Asake collaborative EP Real, Vol. 1 (2026) continue to demonstrate his versatility. Beyond the Asake universe, he has worked with Young Jonn (“Normally,” “Aquafina”), Tiwa Savage, Olamide, and others, consistently delivering beats that balance accessibility with distinct character.
What sets Magicsticks apart is less raw technical flash than an acute curatorial intelligence. In an era when Afrobeats has globalised to the point of dilution, he has doubled down on Nigerian specificity, fuji rhythms, Yoruba vocal cadences, Lagos nightlife energy, while ensuring the end product feels universal. His mixes are crisp yet warm, punchy without sacrificing depth. There is a tactile quality to his drums, a cinematic sweep to his arrangements. He does not merely produce tracks. He produces atmospheres.
Of course, no career at this altitude is without scrutiny. Some observers have noted a certain formulaic comfort in the repeated deployment of log drums and choral hooks across multiple Asake albums. The producer, artist pairing, while extraordinarily fruitful, risks becoming a closed loop. Yet even here, Magicsticks has shown signs of evolution, incorporating fresh collaborators and subtly shifting textures on recent releases. His work on M$NEY, for instance, has been praised for its polish even as questions linger about lyrical substance, production once again carrying the weight.
As Afrobeats enters what feels like a mature phase, less about breakthrough novelty, more about consolidation and refinement, Magicsticks stands as one of its most reliable architects. Now in his early thirties, with a decade-plus in the game and several era-defining projects under his belt, he occupies rare territory: a behind-the-scenes figure who has shaped the foreground of global pop. The “King of Sounds and Blues” tag, once aspirational, now feels earned. Whether he continues to orbit Asake’s solar system or ventures further into solo curation and new artist development, one thing is certain: when Magicsticks is at the board, the speakers do not merely play music, they transmit a whole cultural frequency.