Author: devb2221

“All Eyes On Me”

“All Eyes On Me” is another song about the upbringing of the South African rapper, AKA’s, thriving music career. Here, he partners with other African artists—Burna Boy, JR, and Da L.E.S—in an upbeat dance song. The video shows the four men hosting a pool party, flashing their fancy lives and lots of money, girls twerking all around them. 

            While AKA is a more mainstream artists, well known throughout America, you can still see a heavy sense of African pride in his music and videos. In this song, particularly, African pride is shown through the chorus of the song when Burna Boy sings, “it’s a robbery…”, telling his audience how they [meaning African rappers] are stealing the rap game from all other rappers. This song seems particularly like a jab at American rappers due to the fact that, in the pre-hook, the artist says “Niggas ain’t running anymore now”. Because the N-word is not commonly used in African language, and was picked up by American influence, this leads one to think that the “niggas” Burna Boy refers to are American rappers—people who use the word more fluidly. 

            It is very ironic the multiple jabs AKA, as well as these other African artists, make about American artists, especially because of how much they tend to use American culture. Just like in American rap videos, a lot of African rap videos tend to be at parties, where men flash they’re nice clothes, jewelry, and tons of money with a bunch of naked women by their side. Because African rap is used as more of the way to bring about change politically, economically, and culturally, I do not personally see how his music could be identified as African rap. It seems like more unknown artist tend to rap about what is important, while this one in particular only raps about who he is and how much better he is than everyone else. With his type of influence, it maybe best to rap more about some of Africa’s issues and what they may need, while bringing attention to it through his music. His music seems more like “good time music”, which American rappers tend to lead towards more.

BURNA BOY

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AND MOST FAMOUS NIGERIAN ARTIST TO DATE.

Burna Boy, also known as Damini Ogulo, is a twenty-seven year old, is one of the most famous Nigerian Afro-fusion singer and songwriter from Ahoada, Nigeria. After his song “Like to Party” became widely popular throughout Nigeria in 2012, Burna Boy’s career in the music industry has flourished. He’s worked with several other famous Nigerian as well as International artists, such as Major Lazer, Wizkid and Phyno. 

Burna Boy’s debut single “Like to Party” is an upbeat, however more relaxed, afro-fusion song. In the music video, Burna Boy, sits at a pool party with his friends, multiple women being shown dancing to his music. While the song is most likely filmed in Africa, which I assumed because of all of the people within the music video, you can see how American culture has influenced the artists, who wears a Los Angeles Lakers jersey and hat in the club clips of the video. The song is about Burna Boy having an overprotective girlfriend, however, goes to the party as a way to enjoy other women and get away from her. At this party he is seen, or treated as, a single bachelor, smoking, drinking, and enjoying being danced on by the women there, while his girlfriend blows up his phone. 

You can see how much American culture influences this artists, however, he did something right because, in recent years, Burna Boy has become a lot more popular with the United States. Already, he is expected to perform at this year’s Coachella Fest and has become a brand ambassador for a company called, “Star”. It is said that he does not plan to stray away from Nigerian music, but instead wants to show African culture internationally for what it truly is. Hopefully, as his fame continues, he will continue to influence and educate people about African culture while continuing to make great music!