Let’s be clear: this is a conversation about the biggest song, not the best song. When I say the biggest song of 2025, I mean the record that garnered the biggest commercial success and mass acceptance since the year started.
That said, December is just one month away, and the contenders for Song of the Year are already certain. Throughout 2025, several songs have risen to commercial success, garnering tens of millions in streams while dominating the dance floors and charts.
At a time when singles suffer shorter shelf lives due to growing saturation, which leads to low listener attention spans, some songs managed to garner mass patronage that rocketed them to hit status.
On the list of contenders for the biggest jams that have soundtracked 2025, we find stars leading from the front as seasoned hitmakers, and emerging stars whose fresh tunes connect with the mainstream.
Exploring the contenders will help identify which song stands heads and shoulders above the rest.
The Contenders
Several songs have enjoyed sufficient success to earn the right to contest for the Song of the Year prize.
Shallipopi’s smash hit single ‘Laho,’ Poco Lee, Shoday, and Rahman Jago’s Street Hop anthem ‘Hey Jago,’ Chella’s ‘My Darling,’ Gaise Baba & Lawrence Oyor’s ‘No Turning Back II,’ Niniola’s ‘Ginger Me,’ and Odumodublvck’s ‘Pity This Boy,’ featuring Victony, shaped the first half of 2025.
READ ALSO: Top 10 songs in the first half (H1) of 2025 (Pulse List)
In the second half of the year, Ayra Starr’s ‘Hot Body,’ Rema’s ‘Fun,’ both versions of Mavo’s ‘Escaladizzy’ and ‘Shakabulizzy,’ DJ Tunez’s ‘One Condition’ featuring Fola and Wizkid, Odumodublvck’s hip hop anthem ‘If You Like Gym,’ and Adekunle Gold’s ‘Many People,’ have all impacted the mainstream.
Yet, none of these songs has managed to match the sheer impact of Davido’s ‘With You’ featuring Omah Lay, which is the most memorable and ubiquitous hit song of 2025.
Sweet Fanta Diallo” – How Davido’s ‘With You’ Became The Song of the Year
Not even Davido, Omah Lay, or ace producer Tempoe could have predicted the massive impact of their collaboration. Buried at the bottom of Davido’s fifth album, ‘5ive,’ the song almost didn’t make the album, yet it turned out to be by far the biggest song on the album and the leading contender for Song of the Year.
How did this happen?
‘With You’ simply enjoyed the combination of factors that consistently help rocket songs to era-defining success. Let’s break it down.
A song isn’t automatically a hit just because it’s good or meets the memorable lyrics and sticky melody requirements to score as an Afrobeats song. Consumers must willingly gravitate towards the song en masse and propel it to super smash status.
This is the story of ‘With You.’ The classic easy-to-digest Afrobeats lyrics and sticky Highlife-inspired melodies, which borrow from the iconic Bright Chimezie classic ‘Because of English,’ combined to create an anthem that the people embraced.
Listeners handpicked the song as the single of choice, even though it was buried at the bottom of the album. The organic support and massive user-generated content created consumer-led marketing that propelled the song to smash-hit status.
This story is similar to Asake’s smash hit single ‘Lonely At The Top,’ which listeners handpicked as the single of choice from his acclaimed 2023 album ‘Work of Art.’
As far as 2025 is concerned, no song has moved the streets as much as Davido’s ‘With You.’ At a time when the definition of a hit is adjusted to reflect streaming numbers rather than street impact, the song leads in both metrics. It’s the most-streamed Afrobeats song of 2025 on Spotify and spent 6 weeks atop TurnTable Top 100. It’s also the biggest viral hit in Nigeria this year.
It transcended demographics. It’s popular among young streaming audiences just as much as older listeners embrace it. It’s the song Davido uses to close his sold-out shows all through the year.
The famous Latin quote, “Vox populi, vox dei” (The voice of the people is the voice of God), applies as much to music as it does to politics. When the people decide on a song, it enjoys a smooth ascent to commercial success. The song need not be the finest material, nor does the marketing need to be flawless. Once the public has spoken, the rest becomes history.
