Odeal on His New EP ‘For a Good Time,’ Wizkid’s Genius & Being Misunderstood

Summer is nearing its end, and Odeal's exuberance for movement and dance remains unquenchable. On his latest EP, For a Good Time, Billboard's 2025 Afrobeats Rookie of the Year channels the dance floor with sweet, club-ready tunes. Crafted around rhythm and feel, the project draws inspiration from trips to places like Colombia and Los Angeles.

"Rush" and "Get Down" create a seismic one-two punch meant to get bodies moving, while the Jorja Smith-assisted "Coming Home" showcases Odeal's venture into house music. "I was taking inspiration from everything around me while working," Odeal explains. "Every song had to stand the test of location and time. Everywhere I went, I listened to the record from the previous place and asked, ‘Are they still fire?

Are they still good?’ If they weren’t, I scrapped them. Make new ones and keep moving. The chaos of the parties made that project."

Following the fiery 2025 campaign, which included two EPs, The Summer That Saved Me and The Fall That Saved Us, Odeal shows no signs of pulling back. After the success of "Miami," featuring Leon Thomas, and "Nights in the Sun" with Wizkid, he has continued to flex his versatility as a featured artist. Skating across Wale's "City on Fire," 6LACK's "On Me," and Latto's "Anxious," Odeal has solidified his position as a versatile force who can seamlessly move between R&B and Afrobeats with elastic ease.

"Every single track that I approach, I ask, ‘What's the beat saying to me? What's the instrumental saying and needing?’ And I adjust to the feeling that it evokes," he explains. "That's how I attack it. I really like to understand the world that the artist is in so that I can approach it from that level. How can my verse best describe this whole situation?"

While discussing his new EP, Odeal addresses the mislabeling of his music and the genius of Wizkid, sharing that he considers critics' comparisons between him and Brent Faiyaz "lazy."