Dear Burna Boy, what have you done?
By the time music superstar Burna Boy (born Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu) was done with his New Year Day concert in Lagos, he had insulted fans who waited for almost 9 hours to catch a glimpse of his performance, kicked one fan flush in the face from the stage and asked God to punish fans who had waited for him all night.
At the end, a concert that was themed ‘Love, Damini’ had become ‘Hate Damini.’
“I dey here with una. After una don talk say I kill person for Cubana. After una don talk say my Mama dance for Fela. Una still love me, I still love you na why I still dey here. Na God go punish una,” he bellowed into the microphone while prancing across the stage in his designer clothing and expensive jewelry.
In another footage from the show, Burna could be heard telling fans that they should be grateful that he still comes to Nigeria–-the land of his birth–-to perform, even if that means keeping them waiting for hours on end.
For context, fans had paid as much as N30,000 for a regular ticket, N50,000 for a VIP ticket and N100,000 for a VVIP ticket to watch Burna perform. Tables had been sold for millions as well. For their troubles, the artist showed no remorse on stage and hurled more insults on the fans for waiting for him that long.
“This is not a joke. This is Burna boy addressing the waiting crowd at his concert at around 3am for a show that was to start at 6pm or thereabout. Mad country,” Ayo Bankole shared on Twitter.
“Let me tell you why it hurts me that you people don’t rate yourselves and your contributions to these artists. You guys might not put dollars in their pockets, but na una dey tell the world say the music sweet.
“Na una stories and identity them dey sell,” writes music journalist, essayist and critic Joey Akan.
Others were quick to note that Burna Boy wouldn’t try the disrespect he just dished out to local fans, abroad.
Adds Joey Akan: “Burna Boy to White People: “My Africans are suffering. Dance to my music, brand me a reformer and reward me financially.
“Burna Boy to the suffering Africans: “God punish una.”
Music critic Tola Sarumi notes that: “This guy has been touring and he didn’t do this to foreigners. We know Nigerians don’t have as much money but come on, man. How do you repeatedly treat your own people like this? What drives this disdain?”
What of course drives the disdain is the fact that Nigerian artists realise that no matter how badly they behave; no matter their tardiness, tawdriness and truancy, they would still get fans to show up at their concerts and cough out prohibitive prices for tickets in a nation where more than 80 million people are dirt poor.
These guys know that in Nigeria, you can always get away with murder and that fans don’t care if they are being trampled upon.
It’s been a trend from Burna Boy and his fellow new age artists or singers to keep fans waiting for hours on end during shows. Almost all the Nigerian artists you love, from Davido to Wizkid, have done it at one time or the other. But that doesn’t make it right.
Keeping fans waiting 10 hours, 9 hours for their favourite artists to mount the stage for a performance, is disrespectful, insulting and demeaning to fans and these overhyped Afrobeats singers need to be told so in no uncertain terms.
After fans slammed his behaviour on social media, Burna couldn’t even offer a straightforward apology to save his life. Instead, he devoted one bare-bone paragraph after another to heaping blames for his misdemeanour elsewhere. There was no ownership of his attitude, no remorse whatsoever.
“Lagos, I love you but I can’t do this again. The organisational structure and infrastructure is not there for the complexities of my audio and production needs.
“Let’s be clear. I wasn’t late, my band wasn’t late. We pride ourselves on being highly professional especially with our stagecraft. There were three options available to me; wait for the audio to be fixed and delay the show, come out at 11 pm as planned with no sound or call a breach of contract and pull the plug,” Burna Boy wrote, before slamming the show promoters.
“I commend my band @fromtheoutsiders for making lemonade with the worst lemons we’ve ever seen!
“Wonder X, KC Kennedy Olisa Adibua and Creative Economy did an abysmal job of executing anything, and my fans should never have to go through that.
“I’ll see you all again, on spaceship time! No one else’s. Love, Damini.”
Here was a classic example of how not to offer an apology.
The problem with Burna Boy, 31, is that he’s become so full of himself and is often uncouth. The bigger problem is that like most prima donnas, he neither recognises the problem nor seeks to address it because he doesn’t think he’s got a problem in the first place. He’s got hubris and ego the size of a Whale these days, after incongruously christening himself ‘African Giant.’
However, it may just be time for fans to start voting with their feet by boycotting most of the ‘Detty December’ concerts organised by artists who have no respect for people’s time and who display disgusting unprofessionalism. I mean, we all saw how the Tanzanian law enforcement and fans reacted after Kizz Daniel took the tardiness, unprofessionalism and truancy associated with most Nigerian singers, to the East African nation in August of 2022.
Those who promote these shows and the artists who headline them, should be told in clear, unmistakable terms that by starting shows late, they are displaying ample disdain for the Nigerian audience and fans; and that they are no different from the corrupt and haughty Nigerian political and devilish rulership class they so gleefully excoriate in their music.