Burna Boy apologises for saying Afrobeats lacks substance

Burna Boy has apologised for comments he made distancing himself from Afrobeats.

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 it “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, real name 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.

But, he says, 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.

“I wasn’t the happiest man in the world,” he says.

He says the “division” his words caused helped him to “come to terms” with his opinion.

“I got the point of the Afrobeats tag in that moment,” he says.

“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,” he says.

“I’m not going to be the favourite but I’m going to be the best.”

Burna Boy, who has almost 24m monthly listeners on Spotify, performed at Wireless Festival on Sunday.

He says performing live is his main passion.

“I want to be able to do this until I die,” he says.

“I want to be doing this the way someone like Coldplay has been doing it for a long time, or The Rolling Stones,” he says.

“These people are still doing what I’m doing now, so why don’t I see anyone that looks like me, on those levels, at that age?

“And it’s simple, it might sound crazy, it’s because they just don’t love it as much as I do.”

He suspected – rightly – that his idol, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, might understand.

So he asked him to feature on his new track, Empty Chairs.

“Mick Jagger is the rock star,” he says.

“I felt he, out of everyone in the world, would understand where I was coming from with this song lyrically and he did.”

Working with the 81-year-old rocker was “one of the best experiences I’ve had,” says Burna.

The singer’s just started his European and North American tour, which is due to wrap up at the end of the year.

aListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.