“Fame puts you in a hollow space,” David Bowie sang back in 1975, and many performers before and after discovered the same thing. Their songs declare oversized ambitions and premature bragging as their career begins. But if successful, it brings a lot of pressure and perks if it happens. At times, it brings new motivation to combat anxiety.
Nigerian songwriter Damini Ebnorwa Ogle, Burna Boy, has steadily gained an international star position in 10 years of recording. In April, as part of his latest world tour, he became the first act in Nigeria. Madison Square Garden Arena HeadingFeaturing a cameo appearance (supported by the elders) from Youssou N’Dour, a longtime music ambassador in Senegal.
Burna Boy’s sixth studio album, “Love, Damini,” is a pile of 19 authentic materials. He summoned a roster of international collaborators, including blockbuster hit makers J Balvin and Ed Sheeran, along with Khalid, Kehlani, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Jamaican singer Popcaan, and British rapper J Hus. And like Burna Boy’s previous album, the Grammy-winning 2020 “Twice as tall” His new parade his achievements, acknowledging the suspicions and regrets of a relentless achiever.
Burna Boy calls his music Afrobeats. At its core is the elegant, minimal percussion (manual and electronic) of Nigerian Afrobeat. This means 3 to 2 syncopation using shock and silence. Burna Boy resents some of Africa’s most original producers and connects Afrobeats to his global relatives. R & B, Jamaican dance halls, reggaeton, Congolese rumba, hip hop and more. His voice, a velvety baritone, has a calm calm that can hint at simple guarantees and melancholy silence.
This music draws joy from every strategic detail. From the weaving of backup vocals sampled and echoed by “Different Size”, to the percussive syllables that split the title and refrain. “Kilometers,” From the reverse guitar tone of “Jagele” and the distant reggae horn, from the swirl of the saxophone that answers his voice of “Common Person”. The surface is glossy and gives a sense of security. The internal mechanism is wise and playful. But Burna Boy is more gloomy than he celebrates.
In the album’s opening song “Glory,” Burna Boy promises, “This is my story.” It begins with Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s calm South African harmony, the piano chords ring, and Burna Boy sings, “I have a nightmare of the day I fall.”
His guests often join him as fellow hard workers. Burna Boy urges listeners to dream big, but “remember Martin Luther King dreaming, and he was shot.” J Balvin is a bilingual blend of Afrobeat and Dembow. Exchange poems at “Roller coaster”. Burna Boy expresses his gratitude and abandons “fast life” as “purity of the heart” and leaves himself to the ups and downs. And with Ed Sheeran, he shares “For My Hand”. This is a pledge of mutual dedication through difficult times, befitting a wedding march, singing, “Whenever I break, you make me feel perfect.”
The imbalance between work and life destroys romance “Last and last” The most exciting song on the album.Vocal phrases sampled from nervously distressed minor chords Toni Braxton’s “He wasn’t human enough” Burna Boy sings, “I spent my life at work / and I know I’m in trouble.” “It’s Plenty” states “I don’t want to waste my days / I want to spend my days looking forward”, but the production keeps the bouncy tracks away and Burna Boy apologizes immediately — “I don’t know. How to show love to you “—and feel numbness and compulsion:” No matter what I do, it’s not enough. “In” HowBadCouldIt Be, “picking a crystal guitar and a ghostly female voice. In it, he is more convincing because he details depression, alienation, and anxiety rather than the heartfelt advice of the song. , “How bad is that?”
He has other concerns, such as smog in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, and Burna Boy’s current residence. “Oil and gas make my city so dark / polluted that the air turns black,” he sings in “whiskey.” And even when he promises lustful joy in “Dirty Secrets,” “Science,” and “Toni-Ann Singh,” they are mixed with minor chords and ominous undercurrents.
In “Love, Damini,” Burna Boy could easily congratulate himself and overcome a new conquest instead of looking inside. But even now, he’s not self-satisfied enough to have a party — this time it’s not.
Burna Boy
“Love, Damini”
(Atlantic)