Burna Boy has a lot to be thankful for, the Afro-Fusion star is currently on a multiple city UK club tour, a country he couldn’t even visit last year. While on tour, he met up with arguably the biggest music superstar in the world right now and there’s no telling where that will go. And on his new record “Hallelujah”, the tatted-up singer recounts an episode where he nearly lost his life, he asks –
Wetin for happen if I die like this?
Shey my music for stop to dey play?
This past month marked the 2nd anniversary of the death of Burna’s dear friend, Gabriel “Gambo” Serunkuma, who a lot of his music is either partly or wholly dedicated to. While it would be eternally fulfilling for the singer from ?Ahoada to be joined again with his longtime pal, Oluwa Burna is quite content with how his life has turned out and is actually quite thankful to be alive. On “Hallelujah”, the singer takes us to church, inviting us to be thankful along with him.
Ghanaian dancehall star Shatta Wale is among the people Burna is thankful for on “Hallelujah”. Following up to his inspired performance on Shatta’s brand new record “Hosanna”, and following from the theme of his last EP Redemption, the troubled singer seems like he’s in a place in his life where he can see God’s hand very clearly. He acknowledges that even though he hasn’t always been faithful to Him, God has always been faithful to him – the Big Man playing the bigger man role, if you will. Burna Boy expresses even more thanks because if God were to treat Burna Boy the same way Burna Boy has treated God, Burna Boy wouldn’t be where Burna Boy is right now. He takes a few lines from an old gospel song to buttress this point.
Thank God God no be man oh
For if man be God oh, I for don die oh
I for don kpeme oh
In 2008, gospel artist Victor Angel released the seminal record “If No Be God” that approached God and man’s relationship in a similar but less personal manner. Even though Christianity says man was created in God’s image and after his likeness, it is obvious that there are certain qualities we don’t have that He has in abundance. The message was powerful and resonated with everyone, regardless of creed or religion, but it was a gospel song and Victor is a gospel artist, still making music till this day – “If no be God”, however, remains his biggest hit.
Victor Angel
In recent times, Burna has been drawing inspiration from music from the past a bit more blatantly. On his Redemption EP, he sampled Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” and Bell Biv Devue’s “Poison”, without credit. Skales’ “Cool Temper” probably wouldn’t have upset the Fela Kuti estate if Burna hadn’t sampled not one but two Fela records on the remix, and now this song quite obviously is, at least in part, inspired by Victor Angel.
The record was produced by Ghanaian producer Killbeatz and is a time-out from the musical alliance between Burna Boy and LeriQ that seemed to have been restarted last year.