Meet 'The Golden Boy' KiDi whose Touch It hit Platinum status in India

Farah Khan, Shilpa Shetty and Malaika Arora are some of the Indian celebrities who danced to the globally trending song Touch It. And now it's singer KiDi who is jumping with joy as the infectious number has hit Platinum status in India.

The Afrobeats infused highlife track truly transcended boundaries and cultures by surpassing 200 million combined streams in India, across all platforms last month. Thanks to the overwhelming numbers, India is now the most successful territory in the world with the hit track.

"To be honest, I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see India happening," the young Ghanaian singer tells Firstpost.

He has always dreamt of doing collaborations in Asian countries like China, Japan and India as his songs have been big there, but he didn't know that Touch It would be the one track that would set the pace. "So I am really, really happy about it," says KiDi, whose real name is Denis Nana Dawmena.

In the last two years, many took up the #TouchItChallenge on social media and danced to the foot-tapping song's hook line that goes “shut up and bend over, let your backa do the talking over”. And KiDi took notice of those videos.

"My favourite one was of the old women who were dancing to the song. It gave me so much joy to watch older people dancing to my music," he says.

Touch It, which appears on KiDi’s second album, The Golden Boy, dropped in May 2020. Since its release, the song has received more than 160 million views on TikTok. He doesn’t know how his track became so big, but he feels that people can identify good music.

"People can tell authentic music. People can feel positive vibrations of good music, so I think Touch It has those positive vibrations. When you listen to songs with good vibrations, you can't sit still. You want to get up and dance and bump your head. I think that's the secret ingredient. It just has positive vibrations," says KiDi, who is seen as one of the biggest prospects to come out of West Africa in recent times.

The Golden Boy is already at over 130 billion sales, and the singer has won several awards within the last few months. He bagged awards like Artist Of The Year, Song of The Year , EP and Album Of The Year at the 2022 3Music Awards, which is considered to be Ghana’s most prestigious music awards.

His Touch It journey started when American producer Jack Knight sent him a record by Musical Youth, titled Pass the Dutchie.

"He said, 'yo KiDi, we need to flip this song. It's a classic. We gonna find a way to remake it into a modern and fresh sound'. I said, 'challenge accepted'. I went to the studio and started making the beat. Everything just started flowing from there. That's how the song came," says the singer.

Then in February 2022, he unveiled a reworked version of Touch It, featuring Grammy-nominated American rapper.

"It was such a big honour for me to have Tyga on the song. It was a surprise me. I loved every bit of what we did on the song. I am blessed. It has introduced me to a new crowd and new wave of people. It has increased the song's life span as well," says KiDi, who is promoted in India exclusively by 9122 Records.

He feels that 10 or 20 years down the line, his track will become a classic.

"People will look back and say, 'oh you remember that song 20 years ago, Touch It by KiDi?' As an artist, it is what I want. I want way down my career... most of my songs should have evergreen status. They should be timeless," he says.

But looking back, his music journey wasn't very hard, but it wasn't very smooth either. While starting out, he would just do his own thing in the corner. He would perform wherever he could find a microphone and an audience.

He was doing his own thing till the time he got the chance to participate in a music reality show in Ghana in 2015. "It was called MTN Hitmaker. I won that. Then my single Say You Love Me came out followed by Odo. It set me apart and set me on the path of greatness," he recalls.

His creative process is also quite unique. Whenever he goes to a studio, he tells people that when he writes a song, he needs to strip down the music. "I need to strip down to just the piano or the keyboard. Whatever the beat is, whatever the sound might be, I strip it down. I write most of my songs as ballads and soft, slow music before I transfer them on to the beat. That's why most of my songs have soulful elements no matter what the tempo might be," he shares.

He also enjoys teaming up with artists on his songs. KiDi, who previously worked with artists Davido and Mayorkun, thinks that there are too many people that he wants to collaborate with.

"There's a long list of people I want to collaborate with. So God give us long life and good health so that we can go to the studio and make magic with all our idols," he says without revealing the names of the artists he would like to join forces with.

As of now, he has many shows lined up. He is looking forward to a European tour and a North American tour, but he also wants to do a show in India. "I really want to be there. I have never been to India. I want to go there and experience Indian people, culture and music. I want to make more music and stuff. Maybe do a tour. I'd really want that," says KiDi.

We are in the middle of the year now, and his fans can expect a couple of songs from him. "Big big tunes are coming before 2022 ends, so fingers crossed," he concludes.

Natalia Ningthoujam is a Manipur-based journalist. She knows how to smoothly switch from being a fan to a writer whenever needed. She tweets at @nattynick.

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