Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, popularly known by music fans as Burna Boy is one of Africa’s biggest musical acts.
With his blend of Afro beats and dancehall one of the best there is in current times.
However, Burna Boy splits opinion among Nigerian music fans, and as he has a huge fan base, he also has many people who dislike him, and by extension, his music.
In terms of music, Burna Boy has been delivering the goods for almost a whole decade, giving good lyrical content as well as a good rhythm in his music. He is widely regarded as one of Africa’s best musicians, and he named himself the “African Giant”.
His 2020 album, Twice as Tall received rave reviews at home and abroad, reaching around 153 million streams on Audiomack, and over 64 million streams on Spotify, easily making it the most streamed Nigerian album of 2020.
The album also peaked at Number 1 on the US World Albums Billboard. All of these are just evidence of how good Burna’s music is.
He has been able to redefine modern African music with his unique blend of sounds and traditional rhythm. Burna Boy was invited to perform at the Coachella music festival in 2019.
He also released a song to commemorate the October 20, 2020 massacre of various young protesters by the Nigerian government, titled 20.10.20.
This act even further endeared him to his fans. He sings a lot about the oppression of the Nigerian government and talks about important societal issues in his music.
For all his musical brilliance, Burna Boy strikes one as a different kind of person from that who he sings about and finds himself embroiled in controversy more times than not.
His problems with the Nigerian youths began when he started referring to the youths as cowardly and unable to stand up for their rights in their own country through his Twitter handle.
This statement sparked massive reactions from Nigerians on the social media platform as they lashed out at him, causing him to temporarily leave the platform in 2020.
He then made a video on Instagram where he mocked the plight of the Nigerian youths and they
once again ripped into him mercilessly.
Not quite long after, the #EndSARS protests began in Nigeria, and those youths called out Burna Boy to join them and live true to his African Giant name, but he was silent for days before announcing that he had paid for his billboards to show support for the protesters in various locations in the country, and he joined the protest in London, where he is based in.
After these events, he retracted his earlier words and praised the Nigerian youths for going through with the protests. Later in 2020, he was said to have been involved in a fist fight with fellow Nigerian artiste, Davido in Ghana at a nightclub.
Burna Boy has the range and ability to stake his claim as Africa’s best musician of 2020, but some of his words and actions have sparked more controversy that he might have liked. He however keeps on winning, with awards and huge endorsement deals coming his way.
One does not need NetBet or any betting platform to give bettors opportunity to stake on whether his success will continue, because for all his shortcomings as a human, he is a brilliant artiste.
