Victor AD released Only God Be My Papa, a new single featuring Timaya, that centres on the singer’s account of growing up without a father and on trusting God through hardship.
The track is a mid-tempo, guitar-led Afro-fusion groove that moves through memories shaped by scarcity and endurance before reflecting on purpose and self-determination. Victor described the song plainly: "This song is my story in its simplest form," and added, "It is about trusting God when you have nothing else, and knowing He is enough."
Weight behind the piece comes in the details. The song names two constants in the childhood the singer recalls — God and his mother — and pairs those themes with production that keeps the arrangement spare enough for the lyrics to sit forward. Timaya contributes a verse rooted in gratitude and a gravelly chorus voice that undercuts any suggestion the record is anthemic in the usual pop sense; instead it settles on a personal testimony delivered over a steady, working-musician pulse.
Only God Be My Papa is out now on all major streaming platforms via ONErpm, making the collaboration immediately available to listeners who followed Victor since he came to prominence in 2018 with Wetin We Gain. The new single arrives as a reminder of that early plainspoken songwriting: critics have already noted connections to the straightforward style that first raised his profile.
Context comes next: the Lagos Review observed that Wetin We Gain established Victor’s reputation for plainspoken songwriting, and NotjustOk described Only God Be My Papa as a spiritual successor to that earlier hit. Those comparisons matter because they frame the new song not as a stylistic detour but as a continuation of a career built on narrating survival and aspiration in accessible language.
The tension in the record is quiet but concrete. The song leans spiritual without becoming overly preachy — it frames faith through the lens of the hustle, not doctrine — yet it still asks listeners to accept a moral centre shaped by scarcity. That balancing act is where the collaboration with Timaya pays off: his verse reads as gratitude translated into streetwise texture, and his gravelly delivery in the chorus keeps the track anchored to lived experience rather than sermonizing.
For Victor, the song is explicit about its aim. He casts the narrative in simple, incontrovertible terms: a childhood marked by absence, two constants that carried him through, and the decision to treat God as a practical refuge. Musically the choice of a guitar-led Afro-fusion groove gives the story room to breathe; lyrically the choice to avoid rhetorical grandeur makes the testimony feel immediate.
What happens next is straightforward: the single is available now on major streaming services via ONErpm, and listeners can judge whether the record extends the thread Victor began with Wetin We Gain in 2018. But the more consequential result is already visible — Victor and Timaya, two of the South-South's influential voices, have used a modest musical frame to insist that faith, gratitude and the day-to-day grind can coexist in pop songwriting without collapsing into platitude.
That conclusion answers the question the headline poses: Timaya Only God is not a sermon set to beat, nor is it a hollow expression of religiosity — it is a compact, human account of survival and thanks, delivered by artists who have built their reputations on making personal truth sound like public currency.
