The Evolution of Burna Boy

23 year old Nigerian music artiste Burna Boy announced he has signed a record deal with relatively unknown record label Spaceship Entertainment alongside his new video/single Rockstar. Apparently, that is his own way of announcing his record label. Reports have it that he owns the company.
The career of the Port Harcourt born-raised artiste has been filled with ups and downs although the ups overshadows the downs.
Burna is one of the stars that the Garden City has blessed us with. Timaya, Duncan Mighty are some of the recent revelations of the Rivers State capital. Burna Rankin returned to Nigeria from the UK since 2010 and ever since he has focused on his music. He cites Fela Kuti, Sizzla Kalonji and 2face Idibia as some of the artiste that influence his sound.
Before fame, Burna released 2 mixtapes which features industry heavyweights Davido, Shank, Sinzu (then Sauce Kid), L.O.S, P.R.E. His grand father is late Fela’s manager so starting music wasn’t particularly a tough task for Damini Ogulu.
36NG breaks Burna Boy’s career into five parts.  Before fame, Finally Famous, Controversies, Finally Independent and Spaceship Entertainment.

Before Fame: Burna Boy started doing music late 2010 after returning from the London, England. Shortly after his return he signed a record deal with Aristokrat Records.
Burna Boy went on to release 2 mixtapes in a year. The first Burn Notice, in April 2011 and the second Burn Identity in November 2011. The mixtape met critical acclaim in southern Nigeria and got heavy downloads amongst his growing fans then.
The two mixtapes saw songs that got rotation in the east and southern Nigeria and eventually it got recognition in the west.
‘Abeg Abeg Abeg’, ‘Sweetest Girl’ ‘Wombo Lombo Something’ were some of the songs that got spins on Burn Notice while Burn Identity was more successful with records such as ‘Firewood’, ‘Wickedest Love’ ‘Shobedo’ ‘Korkormikor’  ‘Fulfilling All Righteousness’ and ‘Trumpet’ were considerable hit songs.

Finally Famous: Following the massive success of Burn Identity, Aristokrat Records and Burna Boy realised they already have a wonderkid in the then 2o year old Burna Boy.
The record label quickly released Like To Party. The record didn’t get much buzz until the video was released. With Like to Party having created frenzy in the music game, Burna headlined his own Industry Nite early 2012 and since then Nothing Was The Same.
He released his debut album L.I.F.E (Leaving Impact For Eternity) which was arguably the best album released in 2013. L.I.F.E had chart topping singles Yawa Dey, Tonight, Run My Race, Jah Love Is True, Yawa Dey and of course Like To Party. Burna was nominated for the Headies 2013 Next Rated awards where he controversially lost out to Sean Tizzle.

Controversies: Burna Boy was tagged as disrespectful and raunchy for appearing like this (above) at the Felabration 2013. He appeared on stage rocking panties that night, he performed some of his biggest song… it was a good performance but trying to reincarnate Fela Kuti with his act was a failed move, although his boldness is something to cheer.
The biggest controversy however of his career so far is an alleged killing he was reportedly involved in during his time in the UK. Reports say Burna Boy was involved in a ‘stabbing to death’ case which eventually led to a ban from the UK. Despite his industrious career, Burna Boy has never performed in the United Kingdom – his UK fans have given up on seeing Oluwaburna perform live.
Burna went on spent 11 months in jail (in UK) allegedly, 2 months on parole, was deported in 2010 and eventually banned from the UK for 15 years – he has 10 years left on that. He explained what happened in Freedom



Finally Independent: Aristokrat Records appears to know little about his issue from the UK, or was unable to control life after the revelation. Burna Boy ended up leaving Aristokrat Records for dead in 2014.
36NG exclusively reported the departure of Burna Boy from Aristokrat Rercords…
His affiliation with D’Banj signaled a new lease of life for Damini. The two of them went on to release two songs with one of them, Wan Da Mo eventually becoming a hit.
He made his independence obvious when he released Don Gorgon which wasn’t produced by the usual suspect Leriq, he went on to release the video leaving out the now-infamous Aristokrat Records logo. Check and Balance was the second independent single of Burna Boy.

Spaceship Entertainment: Burna Boy later founded Spaceship Entertainment. He has released one single under the imprint – Rockstar, another controversial song.
He is yet to come out to say he owns the label but he recently got a ‘spaceship’ ink on his body – which signals he might well be the owner.
In the past few months he’s  been affiliating with South African artistes, AKA and Da LES.
It looks like Burna Boy is in a happy place now.

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