ANOTHER BANG GRAMMY FOR BURNA BOY?

Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu born 2 July 1991, in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria, known professionally and in the entertainment circles as Burna Boy, is a singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has been relevantly operating in the music space from 2010 till date. Burna draws his inspiration from Nigerian legendary artist, Fela Kuti. It is evident enough that Burna Boy samples a lot of Fela Kuti’s songs and he doesn’t deny that. He has publicly revealed that Fela Kuti is his Idol.

He rose to stardom after releasing his “Like to Party,” the lead single from his debut studio album, L.I.F.E released on August 12, 2013, by Aristokrat Records. The album dished up as the follow-up to his second mixtape, Burn Identity, unleashed in 2011. The marketing principles of L.I.F.E was so intensified that it could sell 40,000 copies on the first day of its release.

Emerging music sensation Burna Boy and his record label later sold the marketing rights to his debut album, Leaving an Impact For Eternity (L.I.F.E) for N10m. According to reports, the label sold the rights to a popular Alaba music and movie marketer, Uba Pacific who initially hesitated about investing such a huge amount on a new artiste but his fears were later hose down.
The album’s release was preceded by five singles: “Like to Party,” “Tonight,” “Always Love You,” “Run My Race” and “Yawa Dey.”

In 2017, Burna Boy signed with Bad Habit/Atlantic Records in the United States and Warner Music Group internationally. His third studio album, Outside, marked his major-label.

Burna’s career was not slept on as he had a large audience and a very wide fan base. The conscious effort made by him to make appearances on most African Awards shows and performances brought him more light to the industry. He made several songs and featured Great Artiste in and outside Africa.

In 2019, he won Best International Act at the BET Awards, and was announced as an Apple Music Up Next artiste. His fourth studio album; African Giant, was released in July 2019 and won Album of the Year at the 2019 AFRIMA. His album’s growth was crazy and fetched him more attention as he got nominated for a Best World Music Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.

In 2020, he was awarded Best African Artiste at the VGMA’s. Odogwu was motivated by her mother Mama Burna, said to be his manager since 2017, after she made a stage speech at the 2019 AFRIMA “expect madnesses” she said. He released his fifth studio album, Twice as Tall, in August 2020.

Which was nominated for the same category at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making him the first Nigerian artiste with back-to-back nominations at the Grammys. In 2021, Twice as Tall won the Best World Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

On July 8, 2022, Burna Boy unleashed his sixth studio album; Love, Damini after he announced months ago in New York. Is it also an Album of the year?

Burna Boy’s music is mainly pop and afrobeats. He describes his music as Afro-fusion, which blends four genres, R&B, hip hop, dancehall, and reggae.August Brown of the Los Angeles Times said Burna Boy’s sound is “savvy and modern but undistracted by obvious crossover moves.”