Why Omah Lay thought I disliked him – Davido

Afrobeats superstar Davido has explained the reason behind his collaboration with fellow singer Omah Lay, revealing that the partnership was inspired by the latter’s belief that Davido disliked him.

The award-winning artiste made the disclosure while recounting events that led to their collaboration on the song ‘With You’, a track featured on his fifth studio album, 5ive.

Davido recalled that Omah Lay had previously admitted he thought the DMW boss “hated” him until Davido publicly played his song during a viral livestream with American streamer Kai Cenat in Lagos.

According to Davido, he decided to reach out to Omah Lay after seeing a tweet where the ‘Soso’ crooner expressed surprise at the shout-out.

“How Omah Lay and I got together was, Kai Cenat came to Nigeria and I was driving him to the club. Then Omah Lay’s song came on and he was like, ‘Who is this?’ And I said, ‘Oh! This is Omah Lay, he is hot,’” Davido said.

He explained that Omah Lay later tweeted about the moment, stating that he had assumed Davido disliked him.

“The next day, Omah Lay tweeted, ‘Wow! Davido gave me a shoutout on a livestream, I thought he hated me.’ And I DMed him, ‘Why would you think I hate you? We’ve never met,’” Davido added.

The singer said their conversation eventually led to the exchange of contact details and multiple studio sessions.

“We exchanged numbers and started going back and forth with music. We recorded about four songs and he chose ‘With You’ as the one we would release,” he explained.

‘With You’ has since emerged as one of the standout tracks on 5ive and has been nominated for Best African Music Performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards.