We learned 6 things from Burna Boy’s revealing interview with The Fader

We reported last week that Wizkid was featured in the New York-based magazine and now it’s the turn of Don Gorgon, Burna Boy.

The Spaceship label owner who’s still basking in the euphoria of the release his sophomore album ‘On A Spaceship’, starts the thrilling interview with his genre of music ‘Afro Fushion and the politics of the music industry in Nigeria.

Here are 6 things we learnt from the interview:

  1. Burna Boy can’t do without a rolled-up joint

Obviously! It’s well know that Burna Boy has been a big fan of the wisdom grass, from his days of hanging out at the Afrika Shrine.

From videos to song album-arts, we have seen him repeatedly puff on a smoke and during the Fader interview, he was in full form.

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.

 

2. His debut album L.I.F.E sold 50,000 copies in one day.

Dropped one album, sold 50,000 copies on the first day. In Nigeria that’s quite big.” Burna Boy tells The Fader.

We aren’t exactly certain of the veracity of his claim, but good one Burna.

 

3. Burna Boy believes he’s a victim of music industry ‘politics’

When asked about his thoughts on Nigeria’s music industry, he told the magazine that he’s an outsider, because of his peculiar genre and musical style, he doesn’t get awards and accolades.

He said: “It’s political, man. To be honest I don’t really feel like I’m a part of the industry. I don’t get awards because the powers that be don’t really like me. I’m not like everyone else, I won’t do what everyone else does.

“Everything is really political and I’m not a very good politician. So I don’t really involve myself in all that. I just drop hit songs, and my fan-base keeps increasing.”

Dear Burna, be less menacing and a tad more embracing. Start from there, you’ll be fine.

 

4. Burna Boy doesn’t write down his lyrics

There have been whispers in the industry about this, but he confirmed that he doesn’t write down his lyrics as he mostly freestyles his songs. He said he got this style from the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti whose music to him was very 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.”

He added: “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. It’s a really spiritual thing”.

 

5. Burna Boy is not a big fan of international collaborations

The Soke singer doesn’t believe in paying a huge amount of money to international artistes for collaborations, rather he feels the focus of Nigerian artists should be continental.

He said: “Africa has more numbers than America. So if we all used our heads and focused on Africa, then we’d be good. You get me? 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.”

 

6. Burna Boy believes social media is cliché

In the eye opening interview, the controversial singer says social media is no measurement for an artiste’s success.

He feels it’s a facade used to cover up reality as he believes more in making an impact in people’s lives with his music.

He said: “I keep telling people numbers is not Instagram and Twitter. That’s media, that’s not numbers. You can’t hold on to it. In reality, what the real thing is is how many people will sing along to your shit. How many people have you touched their lives with your songs? How many people have been in the hospital close to dead and listened to your songs and got fucking life? How many people can say that?”

 

 

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