Wizkid might be the great-est of his generation, but Burna Boy and Olamide have clearly owned album conversations in their generation. For Burna Boy, he started his career with two impressive EPs and an album, L.I.F.E. He then experienced a fair balance between a slump and mediocre project releases, till Outside dropped.
The album became the commencement of a trifecta: an immaculate three-album run, which marked the zenith of Burna Boy’s career. African Giant is the undisputed magnus opus, but Twice As Tall was another magnificent showcase of artistry, panache and swashbuckling musicality, from the staple of the most talented and most versatile artiste of his generation – and one of Nigeria’s most versatile artists to have ever lived.
That was his ‘golden run,’ a peerless period in the life of every creative artiste, which is a product of 10,000 hours of application and mastery of their craft. The result is the ‘midas touch,’ which encapsulates the concepts of self-awareness, confidence and limitless belief in self, having earned that belief. It is then applied to create groundbreaking art
The end of a ‘golden run’ does not mean that creatives suddenly become mediocre – some of them can still be excellent. But audiences or even the creatives themselves just know that something is missing.
A ‘golden run’ usually ends because creativity is exhausting and exhaustive, and audiences evolve faster than they realise. Which is why templates only work for so long, when you are a superstar. Thus artistes have to keep evolving as well.
In the case of Burna Boy, his ‘golden run’ has finally hit a snag. For the first time in four music years, he seems fallible on an album. While he is no longer walking in air, he is still not walking on the ground like everybody else.
‘Love, Damini’ is also very personal. In fact, it is Burna Boy’s most personal album, as he offers us more insights into Damini Ogulu: the Port Harcourt boy who loves baddies, sex and big nyash (‘Different Size,’ ‘Vanilla.’ ‘Science,’ and more); who is aware of his imperfections, who subconsciously yearns to be understood, loved for who he is and not consistently judged (‘It’s Plenty’ and ‘Glory’); and who wears his heart on his sleeve, and openly declares his belief in love (‘Jagele,’ ‘Last Last,’ ‘For My Hand’ and more).
He reserves a lot of namechecking for people close to his heart. He even namechecks Bukola Sawyerr-Izeogu, his longterm PR person on his outro, admitting that he was not there for her when she lost her mother.
Nonetheless, he indulges his own bratty tendencies on ‘Cloak and Dagger,’ when his critics only ever highlight bad instances of his own making. It also casts shadows over the positive emotions of self-awareness on a track like ‘It’s Plenty.’ Perhaps that is an example of the personal battles of values within Burna Boy himself.
While ‘Twice As Tall’ had personal instances like ‘Level Up,’ ‘Onyeka,’ and more, his standout tracks were usually from an observer’s perspective, or created from third-person empirical perspectives. But on this album, he significantly looks inwards, and reins in his socio-political branding of recent years, barring ‘Whiskey’ and ‘Common Person.’
Despite this shift, the execution of ‘Love Damini’ is still good enough to land Burna Boy on the path to another guaranteed Grammy nomination and more importantly, hits. It also projects Burna Boy as an aware creative.
Love, Damini: Sweeper moves, reintegration into the homefront and Grammys
To create ‘Twice As Tall’ and win a Grammy, Burna Boy sacrificed the homefront and even hits.
While his career benefited from that, he inadvertently became an ‘album artist,’ which served his brand well and presented him as the ‘ideal artist’ to Europeans, western audiences and American music capitalism. It also set him on the path to becoming a Grammy baby.
While he was doing that, he inadvertently alienated the home front and sacrificed singles or hits. On this album, Burna Boy returns for a balance of his appetite to win another Grammy, continuance of forays into American, Latin, Caribbean and European charts with successful hits on – and reintegration into – the homefront.
This is exemplified by the structure of the album: a fine balance between lamba and street lingo on ‘Vanilla,’ ‘Common Person’ and ‘It’s Plenty,’ a use of the influential Amapiano sound on ‘Different Size,’ an appeal to urban American and European audiences with ‘Cloak and Dagger’ and ‘Solid,’ an appeal to white American and European chart influence with ‘For My Hand’ featuring Ed Sheeran, an appeal to Caribbean markets with ‘Toni Ann-Singh’ and an appeal to Latin markets with ‘Rollercoaster,’ featuring J Balvin, a streaming monster.