Damini Ogulu, aka Burna Boy has asserted that the afrobeats genre lacks lyrical substance, stressing that it is “just a great time”.
According to him, the genre is “literally nothing.”
The self-styled African Giant stated that “90% of Nigerian musicians have no real life experiences which is why most of Nigerian music or African music or afrobeats as people call it, is mostly about nothing, literally nothing.
There is no substance to it — like, nobody is talking about anything in it. It was just a great time. It’s an amazing time. But at the end of the day, life is not an amazing time. 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. The artiste is a person who has had good days, and bad days, his great days and worst days. So, I’m dropping a project that should be a window for the fans to see those experiences.”
Reports have said that Burna Boy has affirmed that his genre of music is not afrobeats but afrofusion, a fusion of dancehall, reggae, hip-hop and R&B.