One day, Mavo was that SoundCloud boy spamming links in his friends’ DMs; the next, he’s sharing tracks with Adekunle Gold, Wizkid, Davido, and DJ Maphorisa. In less than two years, he’s gone from begging for streams to being the one everyone wants a verse from.
Call it luck, good timing, or internet magic, but Mavo didn’t just blow up. He cracked the code on how Gen Z artists are breaking into Afrobeats right now, the vibes, the slang, all of it.
Who Is Mavo?
Born and raised in Edo State, Marvin Ukanigbe Oseremen (Mavo) studies Medicine at Afe Babalola University and was already enrolled before music pulled him in for good. He started writing songs in secondary school, experimenting with slang and the Edo rhythm of speech that now defines his sound.
Mavo’s earliest tracks were on SoundCloud, where he shared them with friends and classmates. By his fourth year in school, encouragement from peers pushed him to take music seriously. He deleted everything, started over, and began personally messaging people to listen. Many ignored him, but the few who didn’t became his first real audience. The persistence paid off when his current manager heard one of his songs and decided it was time to put Mavo’s sound on a bigger stage.
SoundCloud to the Streets
That restart was his reset button. Featuring Wave$tar, Escaladizzy debuted on the UK Afrobeats Chart and racked up a million streams in under two weeks.
🚨 Mavo’s “Escaladizzy II” featuring Shallipopi, Zlatan & Ayra Starr has now crossed 1 MILLION streams on Spotify 🔥👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/J7uf0gmBzZ
— 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞𝗦 📀 (@AlbumTalksHQ) August 13, 2025
That’s when the industry turned its head. BNXN, Joeboy, and Zerry DL gave him public co-signs. Mavo stopped being a SoundCloud experiment and became a new name in a scene obsessed with what’s next.
Boboyi behave make you no go collect! 😡https://t.co/SGnWyaZFYI
— Benson (@BNXN) July 2, 2025
Building a Language, Not Just a Fanbase
When he dropped Ukanigbe in 2023, and then his 2024 project of the same name, Mavo started building something else. His music wasn’t just catchy; it came with its own language, literally. Fans started repeating his slang, decoding his lyrics, and using his ‘izzi’ suffix.
He doubled down with his SANKO EP. Songs like ‘Expensive Shit,’ ‘Kilobizzy,’ and ‘Ukanigbe II’ showed a more refined Mavo who knew he had people watching. By the time the deluxe dropped, he had already built something a lot of newcomers struggle for: his own unique identity.
Earlier this month, he dropped Bizzypedia, his own dictionary, in collaboration with Native Mag, to explain his slang, and it was over. Who else is dropping a glossary in the middle of their breakout year? It’s that self-aware Gen Z confidence. Turning your quirk into your trademark.
The Drop That Broke the Timeline
‘Kilometer’ landed this year, and by then, he had stopped being the underground artist a few people were familiar with. Some tracks on it showed potential; however, ‘Kilometer II’ was the explosion. It contained ‘Escaladizzy’, whose snippet already went viral before the song even dropped. Within 19 hours, it crossed 100,000 Spotify streams and trended across social platforms.
A remix with Zlatan, Ayra Starr, and Shallipopi followed, and that’s when it became obvious that Mavo was hot and the new Gen Z voice pulling everyone into his orbit. Now, he’s fully in his big leagues era. At midnight today, he appeared on ‘Money Constant,’ a heavyweight collab with DJ Tunez, DJ Maphorisa, and Wizkid.
money talk i shut up. money constant.🇿🇦🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/PX3UXlib2l
— kilolo (@mavoswago) October 24, 2025
The same night, the remix of ‘Shakabulizzy’, another popular song of his, dropped, featuring Davido. If you’re showing up with more than two superstars in one night, you’re not trying to belong anymore. You’re the moment.
Why Mavo Is Blowing Up Right Now
Mavo’s rise fits the exact energy this new wave of Nigerian music is thriving on: chaos, personality, and slang. His songs don’t sound written; they sound spoken, like he’s talking directly into your ear. Kind of like Shallipopi’s style. That conversational tone that’s half rap, half rant, is what largely keeps them unpredictable.
Then there’s the ‘Lizzi’ factor. Adding ‘Lizzi’ to the end of words has become part of his brand. At 21, he’s also exactly what this era of Afrobeats demands: young, bold, unserious in the best way, and allergic to the usual industry moves. His sound doesn’t care about structure.
Mavo’s come-up says a lot about where Nigerian music is heading. They’re building micro-cultures, slang ecosystems, and viral identities that keep moving faster than labels are keeping up with. He’s also not waiting for a co-sign anymore. He’s the one giving them out, and the industry is catching up fast.
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