Tiwa Savage Slips into a Silky R&B Groove with “You 4 Me”

After years of hinting at it, Tiwa Savage has finally pulled the curtain back on her love‑letter to ’90s rhythm‑and‑blues. “You 4 Me”, the first taste of her forthcoming fourth LP This One Is Personal, finds the Lagos‑born, London‑raised star trading Afrobeats swagger for something altogether smoother.

Built on Mystro’s plush production, the track gently reimagines Tamia’s 1998 slow‑jam “So Into You”, draping its familiar melody in airy keys and sashaying bass. Over the top, Tiwa pours out wide‑eyed verses about new‑found infatuation, her vocal floating somewhere between Brandy’s satin tone and Mary J. Blige’s diary‑page candour. It’s a deft nod to the era she grew up adoring, however the fingerprints are unmistakably her own.

For Savage, the move feels less like a reinvention than a homecoming. “I’m a ’90s R&B girl at heart,” she’s fond of saying, and you can hear that formative fandom bleeding through every melismatic run. But this is the same artist who has spent two decades bulldozing pathways for Afrobeats on the world stage, ghost‑writing in Los Angeles, shelling out hits in Lagos, and lighting up festival main stages from Accra to Ally Pally. The R&B chapter, then, is simply the next frontier in a career defined by border‑hopping ambition.

As “You 4 Me” glides into its final chorus, one thing is crystal clear: Savage isn’t dabbling. She’s staking a claim. The single suggests This One Is Personal will be her most intimate, vocally‑driven project to date. A project less about club‑floor catharsis, more about the head‑rush of first kisses and 3 a.m. confessions. The album title hints at anything, it’s that Tiwa sees this body of work as a statement of self.