Do we like Davido?
Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or campaigns found and real charity giving, against a string of settled legal fights and a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues.
Davido is one of the biggest names in Afrobeats, and lately he has been talking about going home. In a March 2026 BBC 1Xtra interview he said his next album was “very African” and that he wanted to go back to Africa after his global run. It reads like a man who is done chasing Western approval.
The biggest story this year has been politics, and it's a family affair. In May he announced a two-month music break to work for his uncle's re-election, saying he'd put his career on hold “to come and work for my uncle”. Adeleke won in August, and Davido celebrated online with a brief “We did it” post. Backing your own uncle isn't a harm issue, but it is a loyalty one, and you can see where he's coming from.
On the harm test he comes up clean in what I could find. There's no sign of him campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and nothing on vaccines or climate denial. To be fair, that's partly because he hasn't said much on those topics at all, so it's a pass on the record we have rather than a ringing endorsement.
In 2023 he shared a video from an artist on his label that showed men dancing outside a mosque, and some Muslims were offended. He deleted it, and his manager reportedly apologised on Instagram. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka urged him not to apologise, defending the right of artists to use dance in a religious setting. It reads as a clumsy misstep with the company he keeps, not a pattern.
The legal record is mostly commercial messiness. A Nigerian company run by Amaju Pinnick sued over a concert he allegedly failed to perform at, and a Delta State court approved a settlement in March 2024. Four artists also alleged in a New York federal suit that he missed a payment under an earlier deal, and that case ended in a settlement and voluntary dismissal in May 2025.
In February 2026 a lawyer acting for a former partner sent a pre-action notice alleging that Davido was aggressive and verbally abusive toward her in a Lagos court, and demanding ₦1 billion and an apology. The letter alleges a social media account linked to him then posted her photo. No reply from him was reported, and no filed lawsuit has turned up, so treat it as an allegation only.