Burna Boy Explains Why He And Fela Kuti Are Different In Terms Of Sound

Forum 3 years ago

Burna Boy Explains Why He And Fela Kuti Are Different In Terms Of Sound

Burna Boy was a guest on the Hot97 New York show, “Ebro in The Morning” where he spoke on why he is different from Fela Kuti.

Burna Boy spoke on his album, “Twice as Tall”, working with Diddy and others. But one moment that really sticks out is was when Burna Boy was asked why he deems his sound to be ‘Afro-fusion’ rather than ‘Afrobeats.’

He said,

“Afro-fusion is me, I created that. The same way Afrobeat is Fela Kuti – he created that, you know. I don’t play every instrument… I’m not Fela, basically. I’m Burna Boy and we go about things very differently. It’s a different genre, it just comes from Africa basically.”

Burna Boy thinks using ‘Afrobeats’ as an umbrella term for African music is “not fair.”

He further says, “It’s not fair to just join everybody… It’s almost like joining Hip-Hop, R&B and Dancehall into one thing and call it ‘Ameribeats.’ It doesn’t do justice to what’s really going on, but at the same time, we have to start from somewhere.”

The singer also discussed pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism.

Burna Boy also revealed that he wanted Coldplay on ‘Monsters You Made’ but ended up getting Chris Martin.