Burna Boy, a Nigerian Afrobeats musician who released his third album, “Outside,” in 2018, launched himself into the international music scene with a plethora of infectious tunes and the obligatory diabolical charm.
The Grammy and BET honors helped solidify his position in the fiercely competitive international music scene.
Burna spent years experimenting with different sounds in London and South Africa before his worldwide breakthrough, which has been solidified with his most recent release “Love, Damini” (2022), and his ragga-inspired vocal style became recognizable.
He originally came to the attention of African audiences in 2014 when he contributed to the catchy song “All Eyes on Me” by South African hip hop icon AKA. His smoldering hook, which included Jamaican and West African musical influences, let him stand out as a talent to watch on the single that won several awards.
He was regarded as skilled by his South African hip hop contemporaries, but his brilliance was rather subdued. To achieve the kind of success he so plainly desired—awards, international tours, and A-list industry connections—he had to go back to his home Nigeria.
Burna Boy has, at least temporarily, gained popular recognition and has established himself as a modestly obedient representative of the commercial music business despite his meteoric rise and perplexing blend of vocal styles and inspirations. (Even if this is a Faustian fact that anybody may choose to ignore, the same is true of the majority of today’s Afrobeats singers.)
Burna (real name Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu) conveys exactly the proper amount of dread and tangible suspense on “Love, Damini” to maintain his artistic credibility.
How much of his much-vaunted uniqueness does he still possess, though? Reexamining his musical influences could be a good place to start in order to respond to this topic.
Understanding his influences
AKA, Burna Boy and Da LES working together on All Eyes on Me. An image of Sandile Makhoba.
Club bangers like “Soke, Ye, Gbona” and “On the Low,” which were created prior to Burna Boy’s historic 2021 Grammy victory with his fifth album, “Twice as Tall,” are hard not to enjoy (2020).
Fela Kuti’s influence may be clearly heard in the majority of these tracks via sampling and the outright appropriation of other hooks. Many believed Burna to be Kuti’s natural successor.
Afrobeat was virtually invented by Nigerian artist and vocalist Kuti and his incredible ensembles starting in the late 1960s.
Strong pan-Africanist politics, sophisticated call-and-response singing, and powerful West African drumming were all interwoven into this sound, which also included alluring jazz and funk riffs.
The word “Afrobeats” refers to Kuti’s Afrobeat in a more radio- and commercial-friendly form.
The Kuti credentials of Burna Boy seem flawless. Benson Idonije, a jazz fan and broadcaster, had been Kuti’s manager in the 1960s.
Bose Ogulu, his manager and mother, is quoted as saying that Kuti was the closest thing she had to a godfather in the interview.
Since his days as a student in the UK, Burna has also been inspired by ragga, dub, and grime. The genres’ roots were mostly placed in Jamaica, but the urban music scenes in the UK gave them new creative life.
This resulted in a successful song like Burna’s “Rock your Body” from 2017.
Burna Boy had already been successful in combining his many cultural and acoustic backgrounds into one potent aural stew before the release of “Love, Damini.”
Burna hasn’t only copied the sound of Jamaica. He has also taken on the arrogant lad character, obscuring his menacing aura with stories of gunfire from private security guards, rape accusations, and a trail of shattered hearts.
How to evaluate Burna
Burna was clearly trying to serve as a kind of generational spokesman for the restless and growing Afropolitan movement. After been fed a diet of Kuti-inspired pan-Africanism and neo-colonial resistance, it couldn’t have been any other way.
This is heavy material by most measures, especially for a market and age who are addicted to rapid satisfaction.
Then, with his diverse concoction of West African rhythms, West Indian jungle beats, and the pervasiveness of hip hop, he found musical gold. A portion of this gumbo was previously compared by Burna to “pepperoni pizza,” with Kuti’s Afrobeat serving as the crust.
The recipe doesn’t have anything especially special about it. Instead, his unique winning recipe of elements, combined with an appealing personality, contains the X factor.
Of course, there is also the matter of his incredible skill with samples.
He has said that his particular type of music belongs to the emerging Afrofusion genre. Most likely, this is merely a strategy for maximizing recent successes.
a strategy for standing out among the mass of aspiring Afrobeats musicians.
The music of Burna Boy is pure brilliance to the untrained ear. However, to those familiar with Kuti, Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Jamaican godfather of dub, and other comparable Caribbean toasting styles (lyrical shouting over dancehall music), it all looks a little bit familiar.
On May 15, 2022, Burna Boy does a performance in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards. Mario Anzuoni for Reuters
There are several methods for weighing Burna. He is considered little when compared to Kuti, Perry, and other legendary dub artists.
He is a behemoth bristling with substance, creative terror, and yet-to-be-decoded significance in a continuously Instagrammed world, however, when everything is constantly recorded and replicated.
Durable roots of Afrobeat, hip hop, ragga, grime, drum ‘n’ bass, and dub-related sounds gave rise to Burna. There aren’t many other foundations that are as substantial as these.
Up to this point, the majority of his work has included adapting the jungle-heavy sounds for a broad audience.
He serves as a dependable conduit, a vehicle for pure, almost mystical rhythms. Burna sometimes doesn’t even seem to be aware of the depth of what he is expressing.
If he did, he wouldn’t be as keen to link up with each new hot music sensation that sprang from nowhere.
Burna’s lyrics in songs like “Last Last” (2022) are filled with coarse language, meaningless rhymes, and other related words that sounds catchy to the ear, particularly if you don’t understand West African pidgin.
The abrupt shifts between reason and gibberish, pseudo-philosophical seriousness and downright puerility are another characteristic of his work that may be perplexing.
Earning a ton of money
Burna just started a campaign in an effort to achieve even more success. Just take a look at his well-known partnerships with artists like Beyoncé, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, Pop Smoke, and Ed Sheeran from the US, or Wizkid from Nigeria.
Some of his most popular songs are starting to seem a little labored, too thought out, or underthought out.
However, it’s possible that this is unimportant as long as money, brand endorsements, and festival invites keep coming in. That is all that matters in the modern music business.
Burna Boy has conquered the globe and managed to keep his menacing aura, but it’s unclear how much of his real creative spirit he still has.