Nigerian singer, Burna Boy, apologizes for comments about Afrobeats

Burna Boy has apologized for comments he made in 2023, distancing himself from the Afrobeats genre, as reported by the BBC on July 15th. 

The Nigerian singer-songwriter is seen as a trailblazer who has helped to bring the genre to a global audience.

But he faced backlash over a 2023 Apple Music interview where he said Afrobeats “lacks substance” and most artists in the space had “almost no real-life experiences”.

Speaking to 1Xtra’s Eddie Kadi, Burna says the reaction to his comments made him realise why it was important to have an umbrella term to advance the Afrobeats movement.

Burna, whose real name is Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, made history in 2023 when he became the first African artist to headline a stadium show in the UK.

By that point, he already had a Grammy under his belt and was known for dominating the Official UK Afrobeats chart.

Yet he stated that at the time he didn’t want his music, which he sees as a “mix of elements”, to be defined by a single genre.

“I didn’t understand why people wanted my music to be inside one box,” he says.

“The way I saw it, if you just put everything into Afrobeats, you’re now comparing Socrates to Kendrick Lamar because they both said two things that rhyme so they both must be rappers.”

Burna says he was “in a dark place mentally” when he made the comments.

He says the “division” his words caused helped him to “come to terms” with his opinion, adding ”I got the point of the Afrobeats tag in that moment”.

“I totally get it and I apologise for that confusion.”He says he’s now content to wear the label, which he leans into on his new album, No Sign of Weakness, released last week. “I learnt to embrace the fact that I will always be different”.

Burna Boy, who has almost 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify, performed at Wireless Festival in London on July 13th. 

Since his breakthrough single “Like to Party” in 2012, Burna Boy has been an admirable figure in Africa’s music scene, becoming the first African artist to have two albums earn over 1 billion streams. 

BBC, Maghrebi.org