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Singer Burna Boy recently had an interview with American magazine, The Fader, where he spoke about a number of issues, including the Nigerian music industry.
Below are 5 facts about Burna Boy from the revealing interview;
1. Burna Boy believes in spirituality and gifts
As revealing as the interview was expected to be, Burna boy did not hesitate to open up that music is spiritual and that his ability to sing is a gift.
“My music is a gift. It’s perceived as a gift to the people that love and understand it. I don’t really speak for myself alone, I speak for a bunch of people,” he said.
In another part, he said: “Music is spiritual. It’s a really spiritual thing.”
2. Burna Boy can’t do without a ‘rolled-up joint’
From his music videos to album promotions photos, he is always on-point. He didn’t slow down even during the interview with Fader.
The interviewer says:“Over the course of an hour-long conversation, fueled by a couple of joints and some Hennessy, Burna Boy opened up about his influences, the politics of Nigeria’s and why American artists need Africa.“
3. He doesn’t use pen and paper for his lyrics
On this, he stated boldly that he doesn’t have to write down his lyrics just like other musicians before the start practicing. He said it comes freely because music is spiritual.
He said: “I’ve actually never picked up a pen and pad to write a song. It comes spiritually. I don’t put pen to paper, I just pretty much black out, and you hear what you hear. You’re gonna hear things that are coming from deep down, it’s not gonna be something that’s calculated and trying to appeal to these people or those people. Nah.”
4. Burna Boy remains a full disciple of late Afrobeats legend, Fela Kuti
We known that Burna boys grandfather used to be Fela kuti’s manager back in the old days. With the two families so close, Burna Boy was able to pick and follow the footsteps of the music legend and according to him, learn music should be.
“Everything I know I pretty much learned from Fela. Obviously there will never be another person like that. He used music the way music should be used. Music is spiritual.
5. He believes international collabo should be a two-way thing
The Soke singer disclosed that he is not a big fan of International collaboration. He stated that as much as Nigerians want to feature American’s in our local songs, the Americans should also learn to do same.
He said: “You have some people that pay a couple of hundreds of thousands to feature their songs in America. At the end of the day, I will never do that. As much as we need to put them on our songs, [Americans] need to put us on their songs. Because as much as they think they got the numbers, we got the numbers.”
