Burna Boy says ‘Afrobeats lacks substance’

Burna Boy says 90 percent of Afrobeat songs “lack substance and real-life experience”.

In an interview with Apple Music on Tuesday, the self-proclaimed African Giant spoke about the need for artistes to embody real-life experiences of their songs.

Burna Boy argued that many Afrobeats artistes do not have real-life experience, hence why their “songs lack substances”.

The 32-year-old Afrofusion singer said most artistes only sing about “having a great time”.

“Because of where I am from. The sh*t I have to go through to maneuver and just stay with my crown on my head,” he said.

“(It is harder for people that know you best to love you the most). Because they do not know you best. You just think they do.

“When you start going around the world and you start seeing that there are actually motherf**kers that know me a lot than the people that share the same (not experience)… because 90 percent of them do not even share no real life experiences they can understand.

“It is why you hear most of Nigerian 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. It is just a great time. It is 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 are had at some point or you plan to have, you are still going to face life.

“Me speaking for myself, the artiste is the person who has good days, bad days, great days, and worst days.”

Last year, the singer clarified that his style of music is called Afrofusion, and not Afrobeats.