The unprecedented has happened. Burna Boy has become the first homegrown Nigerian artiste to win a Grammy solely for his work.
He began the journey to winning his first Grammy in 2011 when he put out his Burn Notice series, a run of 2 mixtapes (Burn Notice & Burn Identity) just before signing professionally to Aristokrat records.
His breakout song, Like To Party, released in 2012, earned him first real fanbase, but he was only scratching the surface. He then released Leaving an Impact For Eternity (L.I.F.E) in 2013 and On A Spaceship in 2015.
He signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in 2017, where they had the rights to distribute his music internationally. His 2018 album, Outside, changed the course of his career.
The journey to global fame for the artiste started with Ye, the biggest song off the Outside album. Coincidentally, American rapper, Kanye West released an album also titled Ye around the same time. Listeners stumbled on Burna’s Ye, which led to a spike in streaming numbers. Outside peaked at No three on the Billboard Reggae album chart while Ye won Burna Boy several awards. Some of them include two Soundcity MVP Awards for Song of the Year and Listener’s Choice and the 2019 Headies award for Song of the Year. He picked up the BET Best International Act in 2019 for his efforts on Outside.
He also performed alongside Mr Eazi at the 2019 Coachella festival. They became the first African artistes to ever perform at the international music festival since its inception 21 years ago.
The whole world was tuned-in to Burna and watching when he released his fourth studio album, African Giant. He did not disappoint, and the album received unprecedented local and international acclaim. When he released the album, he told the Recording Academy, “My vision is just to, I don’t know how to explain this in a way that makes sense to you, but to shine a light on a place and on people and a situation and everything that there hasn’t been a light on for a long time”. The project gave him his first Grammy nomination, but he lost out to four-time Grammy award winner Angelique Kidjo.
He picked himself up and put all the angst he felt about losing the Grammys into a new project. On August 14, 2020, he released his fifth studio album, Twice as Tall. His failure to pick up his first win affected him greatly, a secret he shared on ‘Level Up’, one of the tracks on the new album.
Despite failing to pick up the Grammys in 2020, the world remained tuned to the 29-year-old and Twice as Tall broke new records. According to Rolling Stones, the album debuted at number 54 on the Top 200 albums chart, amassing 11.4 million audio streams in the United States alone. It also earned him his second Grammy nomination for the second time in a row. He became the first Nigerian Grammy nominee to achieve that feat. Juju maestro King Sunny Ade (1984 & 1999), Afrobeat king Femi Kuti (2002, 2009, 2011 & 2013), and Seun Kuti (2019) have also all previously received nominations for the Grammy award, but never that close together.
On Sunday, March 14, 2021, Burna broke yet another record, becoming the first homegrown Nigerian to win a Best Global Music Album Grammy award.
Before his win, his team told Netng that they prepared hard for this moment and put in work on the album. A member of his team said, “We are confident we put in the work. Put in the work with a good album. Put in the work with the distribution, with the publicity, and everything. So we are feeling pretty good”.
Thankfully their feel-good feeling can last a little longer as they celebrate this historic win. Burna Boy may have been on the outside, lost on a spaceship, contemplating how to leave an impact for eternity, or trying to prove that he is the African Giant, but he’s no longer trying to do any of those things. With this win, he has proven that he is Twice as Tall and ready to take on the world.
