Award-winning Nigerian music star, Damini Ogulu, popularly known as Burna Boy has come under fire for his recent remarks about the Afrobeats genre.
Speaking with Disk Jockey, Zane Lowe, in an interview that aired via YouTube on Monday, the self-acclaimed African Giant talked at length about his music career and his upcoming album “I Told Them.”
When asked what inspired the album’s name, Ogulu revealed that the album addresses people from his “own home” who have doubted his success.
“A Prophet is not really recognized in his own home and sh*t. This one is for the part of my home, and people in my own home who didn’t believe or doubted it, or still doubt it. And not just them, everyone that ever heard me speak in the past when I first started,” he explained.
Lowe also asked the “Ye” crooner why he thought colleagues who shared the same experience with him could not love or believe in his talent.
Burna replied, “Not even experiences because 90% of them have no real-life experiences that they can understand. Which is why you hear most of Nigerian music or African music or Afrobeats as you people call it, is mostly about nothing, literally nothing.”
Burna claimed that “there is no substance” to the genre because most Afrobeats artists only talk about having “an amazing time” in their songs.
“But at the end of the day, life is not an amazing time,” he continued .”No matter how 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. So, for me, I feel like music should be the essence of the artiste. An artist is a person who has good days, bad days, great days, and worst days.”
Ogulu further disclosed that his upcoming project would be “a window” for his fans to see his experiences.
The Grammy-winning artiste has dropped several tracks off his much-anticipated seventh studio album, “I Told Them” which is slated for release on Friday.
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