Entertainment
Burna Boy makes history, sold-out London Stadium gig
Burna Boy made history over the weekend when he became the first African artist to headline a stadium show in the UK.
A sold-out crowd of 60,000 fans screamed the Grammy award-winner’s Afrobeats lyrics back to him at the London Stadium.
And he didn’t disappoint with his two-hour set – bringing out famous friends like Stormzy and Dave on a giant merry-go-round to perform alongside him.
Afrobeats – a mix of African and Western influences – has seen a massive rise in popularity over recent years thanks to the likes of Burna Boy and Wizkid.
The pair, two of Nigeria’s biggest stars, have headlined some of the world’s major music festivals but it was Burna Boy who took it to another level on Saturday night.
Fans danced in the aisles, creating a carnival like atmosphere as he bounced around the stage in a bright orange jumpsuit.
One of them was Kojo Amankwah, 27, who says he travelled 3,000 miles from Ghana to be at the historic gig.
“I loved seeing how multi-racial the crowd was, united by the power of Burna Boy’s music. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” he tells Newsbeat.
“It’s something the greatest performers of all time like Beyoncé and Michael Jackson have been able to achieve. And now Burna Boy’s done it.”
As well as Stormzy and Dave, Burna Boy also brought out big names like J Hus and Jamaican vocalist Popcaan as part of the star-studded gig.
But Kojo says the fact he had no warm-up acts shows how far Afrobeats has come.
“When you go for concerts, usually there’s a co-headliner, Burna Boy and his band didn’t need any of that,” he says.
“To know he has that much star power is something we’ve never seen before in African music.”
Someone else who was at the gig was Cata Hopkins – who was so excited that she was at the stadium for 10:00 GMT.
“It’s so hard to even put it into words, the energy was just wild the whole entire day,” she says.
“I met so many friends and other people that were there to have a good time and I think the best thing about the atmosphere was just how positive it was.
“Everyone was just happy and everybody was there feeding off the amazing energy that Burna and his band bring to the performance.”
Selling out a UK stadium has been hailed as a massive moment for the genre, which has been appearing on charts across the world and taking over TikTok dance challenges.
It’s also been embraced by some of the world’s biggest stars – with Beyoncé and Drake featuring Afrobeats artists on their albums.
The Official Charts company has told Newsbeat that Afrobeats songs are now spending nearly 10 times as many weeks in the top 40 than they did two years ago.
Burna Boy’s hit Last Last peaked at number four in the Official Singles Chart Top 40, while Rema’s Calm Down – which features Selena Gomez – is currently number three.
Burna Boy’s also dominated the Official UK Afrobeats Chart, which launched on BBC Radio 1Xtra in 2020.
And he’s also taking Afrobeats to the football this weekend, when he performs at the Champions League final in Istanbul.
TBaze is an Afrobeats musician in the UK who feels inspired by Burna Boy’s success and the rise of his sound.
“It’s not even just about the artist, musicians or fans. It’s for the people,” he says.
“The crowd represents a diverse community and it’s cross-cultural. We’re learning about different cultures through this experience.”
Looking ahead to the future of the genre, TBaze says the genre is growing because of social media.
“A lot of artists have to think about how the music relates to things like TikTok dance challenges. It could be Instagram reels or freestyle challenges.
“That accessibility is essential and I think about that when I’m writing a song.
“In future, I’d imagine people will be fusing Afrobeats into their genres even more.”
Iconic Nigerian singer Peter Okoye has responded to allegations made by his twin brother Paul over ownership of a new song “Winning.”
Peter Okoye shared a detailed account of the song’s creation, clarifying his role and collaboration with others, including Ghanaian producer Vampire and songwriter Calypso.
He questioned Paul’s claims, citing their agreed-upon creative process and Paul’s removal of his (Peter’s) vocals from joint songs.
Peter also addressed his temporary break from music, stating he took time to recharge before returning with “Winning.”
He wrote on X: “If you have followed my journey as a solo artiste and even before, you will notice that I give people their due credit where necessary as I am a firm believer in teamwork; I know my strengths, where I need assistance or guidance I am not afraid to ask or work with those who are strong in the areas I am not; this includes the process of creating music, executing concepts and ideas etc. I will always credit people for their contributions to my projects.
“Sometime in June 2022, I stumbled upon a producer based in Ghana named Vampire, and my team and I also personally reached out to him via DM, that I liked his work and was interested in working with him. Before getting him to Lagos, I presented the idea of this producer to my twin brother and our team, getting their buy-in before I got him flight tickets and flew him to Lagos.“
It was when he got into Lagos I asked if he would be open to working on P-SQUARE’s next album project, that the 5 songs I had penned down from my end to be presented to our A&R team for the album project were: JAIYE, WINNING, FIND SOMEBODY, LEGENDARY, and ATTENTION, based on tracks he had produced.
“We started with my own 5 songs that needed to be submitted for PSQUARE’s album, which he produced for me: The idea for WINNING came from one of his beats that I discovered. I came up with the idea of changing the chord progression from the original version to what it is today with my own producer Goldswarm who is the co-producer of the song WINNING.
“I had also engaged a songwriter known as CALYPSO who wrote and composed the song WINNING and sent it to me on the beats through a voice note. And we started working on the song. Mind you, he worked on some other songs that were to make the album as well, so my brother was aware of his input to the production as we were all in the studio during this period.
“Then when my twin brother heard the song WINNING, which we had already created the hook/chorus for, he then wanted to start creating a verse. Our agreed-on process for each song presented by us was: arrange the song, leave a verse for the other person, then we both harmonise the chorus and refrain bits together. He wasn’t supposed to until Calypso and I finished it as part of my own song submission to the LEGENDARY ALBUM.
“After that, we finished and shared verses among ourselves. I do not wish to get into details of why the album didn’t see the light of day till date but it takes a different level of psychosis for one to steal what is theirs already; as since the release of this song, I have been labeled and called all sorts online and they have even gone as far as asking for the song to be taken down on various platforms, to what end?
“It was never part of his 5, now 6 (according to him) songs for submission, yet when he felt I was not interested in making music because I chose my sanity over the constant berating and drama that seemed to come up over creative direction in the group.
“If it were his song, why do I have all the music data including initial conversations and picture/video evidence on the above-mentioned titles/songs? Which of his songs do I have its data in my possession in that case? All because he was hoping for me to quit music. Even when I learnt that he had removed my vocals on songs we did together, suggesting that he sing the entire songs including the ones that he planned to present for the album without my input (a very absurd idea as we both make up the duo not just the one), but we both perform them on stage, I begun to have a rethink of the entire situation. Let me leave this here.
“Maybe because I was not posting anything music-related on my social media page for over 4 months. He believes I have lost interest in music. I took a breather to get my mind and head in the right space and when that was done, my epiphany was WINNING!”.
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