When Mr Eazi and King Promise first met in 2013, they were merely two ambitious voices on the edges of a burgeoning West African pop scene; 13 years later, they return to one another as its undisputed architects. For Mr Eazi and King Promise, the pillars of the modern West African pop canon, their joint project, See What We’ve Done, arrives as a long-overdue conversation between brothers. The nine-track collection serves as a vibrant, occasionally sentimental look back at the ground they’ve covered since meeting in 2013. This journey endured two years of total silence and a shifting musical landscape.
The record opens with “Where Have You Been?”, produced by the venerable GuiltyBeatz, which immediately sets the tone of the search. King Promise‘s silky, highlife-inflected, undeniably smooth vocal kicks off a search for intimacy that feels both personal and universal. When Mr Eazi joins him, his trademark “Banku” delivery – laid-back and rhythmically intuitive – reinforces the project’s central thesis: that some things, like love and creative chemistry, are worth the pursuit.
The project’s most audacious moment arrives early with “That Way”. It is a generational gamble, an interpolation of the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 cornerstone “I Want It That Way” reimagined through a contemporary African cadence. While a lesser duo might have leaned into the irony of the boy-band trope, Eazi and Promise play it with an unpretentious sincerity. The song is anchored by a melodic bassline and club-ready percussion that manages to bridge the gap between millennial nostalgia and the current pulse of the Accra-Lagos corridor.
Throughout the project, there is a recurring shift between the euphoria of pursuit and the sobering realities of attachment. “Taste” leans into the physical, a humid exploration of intimacy. Meanwhile, the King Promise solo track “Jealous” (and its collaborative companion “Baby I’m Still Jealous”) offers a look at the insecurity that often tails success.
However, it’s “Criminal” that provides the record’s most startling curveball. Stripped of the traditional Afropop scaffolding, it begins with an acoustic grit that feels like it belongs to a pop-punk rebel in a London basement. The fusion of that raw, almost-alternative energy with their smooth vocal deliveries creates a diversity of sound that suggests the two are no longer interested in staying within the lines.
Production duties are shared among an elite roster, including JAE5 and KillBeatz, but the cohesion of the record remains startlingly intact. “No. 1 Fan” uses a synth-driven melodic bass to provide a moment of validation, while the finale, “See What We’ve Done”, closes the circle with a bold Afro-Amapiano rhythm. The title track is less a boast and more a meditation on legacy. As the heavy bass thumps beneath their voices, there is a sense of genuine gratitude for the “working” they’ve shown over the years.
In the thick of a mainstream industry made for virality and disposable hooks, See What We’ve Done lands like a pulse check: messy, breathing, and defiantly human. It’s the sound of two men who have grown up together, fallen out, reconciled, and finally found the time to document their shared frequency. It feels like an afternoon spent in high-definition reflection, proving that even at the height of their solo powers, these two are still each other’s most effective foils.