It’s ten years since Bebe Cool’s Love You Everyday-his genre-bending opus-was released as his first single on YouTube on July 27, 2014. Stark in a Kenyan desert, he sang away to a beauty dressed in a Maasai shuka who had random glimpses; her walk and Bebe Cool’s posture next to a vintage automobile left many talking Love You Everyday was a song of talking points.

Bebe Cool had veered away from the high-tempo Ugandan pop popularly known as Kidandali for smooth rock-influenced pop music style; the music was out of his skin, and yet his voice fit the instrumentation like a glove.

The album, Go Mama, went on to have more surprising songs such as Mandela, Freedom, Anything for Love, Make the World Dance, and Sweet Banana that did not sound like anything Bebe Cool had released before. This is the same case with Bebe Cool’s new song, Circumference.Produced by PhilKeyz, Bebe Cool’s Circumference is an Afrobeats single with an infectious, vibrant, and energetic rhythm. It heavily exploits drum patterns and keys It is smooth on the ears and allows listeners to appreciate both his voice and the drum pattern that is carefully layered across the 2:55-minute song.

With refined beats reminiscent of the early Afrobeats takeover, Bebe Cool is elaborative as he tells us about a beautiful woman, whose shape he can only define using a mathematical and geometrical term, circumference. Circumference is the arc length of the circle, so you can imagine. It is a feel good song that easily gets one nodding, the composition is not complicated thus is in tune with a young African who doesn’t want to be stressed but wants a good time. The song could be a tribute to a beautifully shaped woman, but it is also a subtle tribute to the dancefloor, the kind you will listen to but rarely think about the woman but how groovy it is.

According to an insider, PhilKeyz had initially made the beat for WizKid, but Bebe Cool’s team listened to the beat before it reached the Nigerian superstar and loved it. That’s when conversations to have a song to it started, and as they say, the rest is history. The song and production style fit the mould of many of the songs currently playing on international platforms and streaming playlists. And like many Afrobeats bangers at the moment, Bebe Cool knew the tricks: weave a good song with captivating beats, make the verses shorter and the chorus edible, or sing along.
He pulls this off comfortably enough that by the time it’s done, the replay button becomes an easy option.
Bebe Cool’s new album Break the Chains will be arriving early next year.