Grammy-winning Nigerian singer Damini Ogulu, aka Burna Boy, has asserted that the afrobeats genre lacks lyrical substance, stressing that it is “just a great time.

According to him, the genre is “literally nothing.”

The self-styled “African Giant” stated this in a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in New York.

He said, “90 percent of them [Nigerian musicians] have no real-life experiences, which is why most of Nigerian music, or African music, or afrobeats, as people call it, is mostly about nothing, literally nothing.

“There is no substance to it—llike, nobody is talking about anything in it. It is just a great time. It’s an amazing time. But at the end of the day, life is not an amazing time. No matter how nice of a time you are having now, had at some point, or plan to have, you are still going to face life.

“So, for me, I feel like music should be the essence of the artist. The artist is a person who has good days, bad days, great days, and bad days. So, I’m dropping a project that should be a window for the fans to see those experiences.”

The Daily Post recalls that Burna Boy has reiterated that his genre of music is not afrobeats but afrofusion, which he said is a fusion of afrobeat, hip-hop, reggae, R&B, and dancehall.