By Ayodele Johnson

The people who are close to him the most, like his Nigerian roots which could comprise other music stars or listeners, are the ones who least understand him. This made part of Burna Boy’s views as he chats with radio DJ Zane Lowe towards the ‘I Told Them’ album release this Friday.

Having travelled around the world selling out stadiums and also doing a tour in the Caribbean, the singer at New York City’s Rock and Soul, where he was hanging out with Lowe, had come to a new realisation on his journey.

“It is really about where I am from and [what] I have to go through to just manoeuvre to stay with my crown on my head,” according to Burna Boy.

“They don’t know you best. You just thought it and that was where you made a mistake.”

Afrobeats with no substance

Any personality attributed to Afrobeats was made possible by the musicians who perform in the genre. By Burna Boy’s standard, they are not doing it right. Hence, no experience.

“When you start going around the world and you start to see that ‘oh!, there is actually [people] who know me a lot compared to the people that you share experiences with’, but as soon as Lowe interrupts, he quickly withdraws to say that many musicians at home have no experience to share.

“Afrobeats, as they call it, is mostly about nothing. There is no substance to it. Like nobody is talking about nothing – it is just a great time.

“But at the end of the day, life is not an amazing time. No matter how much nice of a time you are having now, or you had at some point, or you plan to have, you are still going to face life.

“For me, I feel music should be the essence of the artist. Me speaking for myself, the artist is a person who has good days, bad days and worst days. And for me, if I give you something like this with my face on it and my name, then I should be giving you that experience. That should be a window for you to see some of that essence.”

Burna’s lane

Burna Boy is fervent in the effort to remove himself from the box of Afrobeats sound although this appears to be the route that led many African artists to discover a voice on a global stage. He now strictly identifies with the Afrofusion brand in a separate interview with on-camera host, Speedy Morman.

The host pictured Burna Boy’s single, ‘Sittin On Top Of The World’ off the soon-to-be-released ‘I Told Them’ album as a new sound but the singer denied this saying:

“It is actually not a new sound from Burna Boy because Burna Boy has always been Afrofusion” which is a “big melting pot of different culture and sound”.

The singer who credits himself as the creator of the sound admitted that he did so because he didn’t want to be boxed within the Afrobeats element, although critics argue that both sounds are the same. By Friday, all those submissions will be put to the test.

Perhaps, after a complete review of his seventh album, a consensus will emerge concerning what the music star truly represents. Listeners only need to wait and see.