My Music Is Not Afrobeats, But Afrofusion —Burna Boy Reaffirms

Grammy award winner, Burna Boy, has reiterated that his music genre is AfroFusion, not AfroBeats, as many often classify his style of music.

Burna Boy, had over the years stated clearly that he does Afrofusion, and gave kudos to Afrobeat music pioneer Fela Kuti for the drive and force he gave to the music genre.

The ‘Last Last’ crooner has again clarified why he should not be referred to as an Afrobeats artiste in a recent chat on the Million Dollar Worth of Game podcast.

Burna Boy added that calling all music from Africa Afrobeats is unfair because African songs have a lot of music genres like Juju, Fuji, and many others.

“For me, it’s like the same way you’re going to say Nas is an R&B singer because he’s from America or Whitney Houston was a rapper because rap is the most popping thing now,” he said.

He added, “I can’t accept that because I’m not a rapper. So now in Africa when you talk about music, the first thing they say is Afrobeats. Afrobeat is a legend called Fela Kuti.”

“Years went by and Nigerian musicians started dropping music that was becoming something. So they needed to call it something to be able to identify with it.”

“Somehow they just said Afrobeats and added an s. I don’t know what sense that made, but that’s what happened. Somewhere along the line, all the music that comes from Africa just writes Afrobeats.”

“We have Highlife, Juju music, Fuji music, South African Kwaeto music, Amapiano, Afropop, we have all types of genres in Africa. To be really sincere, for you to just call everything Afrobeats kind of does a disservice to the artistes.”

“For me, when I started the Afrofusion thing, it was like my music was not the same with anything that was out. It was like everybody else kind of sounded the same.”

Burna Boy stated that he started Afrofusion and will not agree with anyone who brands him as an Afrobeats artiste.

“It was one kind of move and for me, there was nothing I could identify myself with. So I just decided that I’ll call it Afrofusion because it’s a fusion of everything.”

“The Afro-Africaness is the thing that covers it, it’s the bottle that holds the whole drink. That is why I always make sure that everybody knows this is what I do, it’s Afrofusion.”