I lived through uncertain times in the latter half of 2014. I was torn between school aspirations and asking myself what I wanted out of life and love. My erstwhile best friend, co-incidentally the person I was seeing at the time, was living through what I would later understand to be the Crisis of Millennials; asking who, what, why, and why not questions of life.
We would fight frequently, and extend wobbly olive branches. One such time, I asked him, “what’s your favourite song?” He looked perplexed for a second, and said, “Burna Boy’s Tonight, sometimes.”
He opened the path for my first deliberate Burna Boy experience. Well over a year later, I would see Burna Boy perform live for the first time, surrounded by the sweat and magic of the Afropolitan Vibes crowd at Freedom Park.
He was MAGIC. High profile guest artistes would typically arrive perhaps an hour to the end of the show. Adebantu and the Bantu collective would have belted out crowd-stunners, feel good vibes that made you wobble tired hips as you laughed at the uplifting lyrics, chanting along and shaking off work week stresses with each line.
In came Adekunle Gold, and, although relatively new to his music, I enjoyed the convincing love in his eyes and the sound of his voice. I’d vibed with Yinka Davies (epic, epic Queen), shaking out my braids every time she moved, lifting and dropping my feet in step.
I recall that Adebantu, the convener and lead of the Bantu Collective, came on stage to explain that Burna Boy was held back by some traffic.
Shortly after this, Oluwaburna hopped on the stage and owned it. He had one errant dreadlock sticking out of his ponytail, and, covered in sweat and shirtless, he gave the impression that he had been rocking with the crowd all night, unseen. He was all smiles and everywhere all at once. He brought to mind the energy of Sound Sultan.
“Run my Race”, “Like to Party” and “Tonight” sealed it for me. I was going to pay attention to the Burna henceforth. I did not actively fulfill this until the last quarter of 2017, when I embarked on a listening exercise with all his tracks on Deezer. I compile playlists to bolster my creative process.
I had just completed a third or fourth run of what he had to offer when Nigerian Twitter ran amok with the news of a Burna Boy x Lily Allen hit, titled, “Heaven’s Gate”. (As an aside, I should devote a day to Lily Allen, particularly her Elton John collabo. Rad, btw.)
His newest album went live a few days ago, and I finally journeyed with it, yesterday. I hit the first track, “More Life”, while wedged in a minibus, leaving from a book club meet. I say, “wedged”, because I was pressed between the hanging conductor and a middle aged man with a hacking cough. I’d had to tell him off when his first bout hit, it’s very important to handle aerosolized body secretions properly.
Somewhere in the space around me was the lingering smell of spilled Bitters, admixed with weed. It’s sharp, pervasive, and seems to pulse faster when mixed with sweat. It brought to mind Burna’s Afropolitan Vibes performance all those years ago, and I listened closely.
Five tracks and two bus stops in, an impression was formed. The songs felt incomplete, like partial uploads, tailing off just shy of the point one felt the song would end. Technical error?
The man seated behind me felt distantly restless at this point, his knees pressing in. The smell hit harder. Yup, it was probably coming from him.
I rearranged my limbs as the Lily Allen collaboration came on. My screen was locked, so I was blind to the name of the song and its performers. From the opening chords, I swear, I knew. Burna had a completely different accent, his phrases seemed clipped, rounding carefully at the tail of whole words. His pitch was higher, and seemed to have an English lilt. My hunch was rewarded when Lily Allen came on the track, her pitch and accent matching Burna’s perfectly. In all it was an enjoyable sound, and I could well imagine Lily Allen being extra in the video, as always.
The largest irony in this was that the preceding song, “Where I’m from”, speaks to Burna’s early days in Nigeria, living the lower to middle class metropolitan life, enjoying street finger foods and watching the world go by. Somewhere in the middle of this flow I had to change seats to allow my perfumed neighbour exit the bus. The ride ended shortly after, and so did my time “Outside” with Burna.
It’s 2.10pm on Sunday and I have, among multiple tabs on my browser, two waiting tabs. One features Burna Boy’s entire discography on Deezer, from “Best of the Burn) (2011), to “L.I.F.E” (circa 2013), “On A Spaceship” (2015), “Redemption” (2016) and; the other, since the 26th of January, “Outside”.
I have eight more songs to go to complete my journey “Outside” with Oluwaburna. Perhaps I will share what I feel.
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