Burna Boy performs onstage at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, California on April 21, 2023.
Half an hour before former NTV presenter Larry Madowo went on air for a 2017 edition of The Trend show, his producer received a text message that Nigerian singer Timamya, who was supposed to be the main guest, had cancelled his appearance.
Never mind that there was a contract between The Trend and the organisers of the Barbecue Live (BBQ) event where Timaya was to perform the next day. Riding high off of “Ukwu” then, the “Cold Outside” hit-maker was flown into the country to spice up the food event of tasty ribs on the grill, all kinds of meats and mouth-watering African dishes with soul - music.
Timaya gave a flimsy reason for cancelling and Larry didn't care to be bothered by a Nigerian artiste who couldn't honour a contract and show up to promote his Kenyan concert. Larry, in a column on Daily Nation in April 2017, claimed not to know who Timaya was after the incident.
If anything it wasn’t the first time a guest had changed their mind about coming on the show at the last minute. Neither was it the first time a Nigerian act had confirmed that they would show up only to drop out with some flimsy reasons.
Flavour had done so. Gospel singer Sinach apparently refused to leave her room when it was time to head out to Nation Centre and couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
“To be fair, it’s not just Nigerian stars who do this, but they are more temperamental than any other nationality we have dealt with over the years. The stories of the divas and prima donnas with pidgin accents my team have could fill a book,” noted Mr Madowo.
Which brings me to my point - Burna Boy, the bullish Grammy award winning Afrobeat singer who last Saturday gave an outstanding performance, at Uhuru Gardens, for the first time in the country.
Days before Timaya gave The Trend a raincheck, Burna underwhelmingly performed at then club Privee in Westlands that angered revellers who had showed up. A visibly intoxicated “Mr Lambo Lambo” showed up some minutes to 3 am only to give a lacklustre hour-long show, leaving the crowd that had been waiting for hours in disbelief.
Last Saturday, he came on stage at 11pm and delivered a decent two-hour performance, but I digress.
The morning after the Westlands show, X (then Twitter) was ungovernable as Kenyans called him out; with some demanding back their Sh1,500 gate charges. Bullish as he always is, Burna was abusive and blocked anybody whose tweets rubbed him the wrong way.
“Do not stoop to the level of replying some peasants…plenty talk no dey full basket,” one of his countrymen tweeted him.
His response, “I am (expletive) bored here… I couldn’t find a flight out this morning. So these peasants are my entertainment till I dip.”
In another tweet, responding to Kenyan singer Anto Neosoul branding him a ‘diva’ and arguing that local artistes would have put in a better show, Burna wrote, “Lol failure a** n****z. You want to be respected? Start taking yourselves seriously and everyone might.”
The contempt in the tweet was spectacular but also showcased what Burna and some of his country men who get top billing here think of Kenyans.
But this wasn’t the first imprudence administered by Burna on his visit to Kenya. Kenyan journalists had a hard time chasing him for an interview during the Coke Studio recording in 2014 due to his self-centered and salty attitude.
Then at the 2019 NRG Wave concert in Mombasa, fans felt cheated when he showed up on stage in the wee hours of 3:30am to an event that was marred by other controversies.
Even while being interviewed by Complex US in 2023 on a variety of topics, when he was asked to taste four different types of rice and guess which country each plate of rice came from, he went on to insult Kenyan cuisine as trash even though no Kenyan delicacy had been offered.
When he returned to the country last week, those who have been keeping tabs with his flying arrogance and disrespect hoped he would at least apologise to Kenyans at the show. But, as some who attended the concert argued, Burna Boy’s inflated ego and misguided sense of superiority would not allow him to do so.
Instead after his two hour performance, he tweeted;
"Thank you for the love through the years, Kenya! Last night was incredible, and big love to my brothers Sauti Sol for coming together for this one.”
The majority of Kenyans clapped and moved on. Larry Madowo's question in that 2017 column is still answered - Why do we love Nigerian artistes, yet they treat us with contempt?
To which I add, why not be like South Africans? His much-hyped caSouth African concert that was to take place in December 2023 was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, his misdemeanours and the impact of the long-running industry dispute between South Africa and Nigeria. South Africans were sure to make a statement, which Kenyans seem to struggle with.
For the first time, at least nobody openly vented about Burna’s hitherto “customary” bad performances on Kenyan soil.
As the sun set over the Kenyan capital, the atmosphere at Uhuru Gardens quickly heated up with anticipation. Dressed in a black-and-yellow matching ‘Year of The Snake’ creep leather jacket and trouser outfit, the night was an explosion of vibrant Afrobeat rhythms as the Grammy-winning artiste only performed a mix of his greatest hits. The strategy kept the revellers alive throughout the entirety of his performance. His infectious energy was marvellous to witness.
Marking a departure from his previous, boring shows, Burna shipped in his entire backline (musical instruments and equipment needed to play a live show) gear and a personnel of 45 people to do the set up. That ensured the sound was great and with no interference.
Ahead of an anticipated world tour with a new album on the offing, the Nairobi show served as a good testing ground for his new sound partners for his events worldwide - Patchwork London.
Burna also brought his band, whose members are mostly his family. It included a deejay, two guitarists, two keyboardists, band drummer, six talking drummers, four dancers, four vocalists, a sound engineer and front-of-house (FOH)engineer.
FOH engineer, working from a console (part of the backline gear) controls the sound that the audience hears through the venue's main speakers. That means Burna Boy’s live performance was first channelled through the consoles, timely filtered and cleared for noise before hitting the main speakers. Thus, ensuring the live production was crisp and good for the ear.
In other words, the FOH, also known as live sound engineer, meets with the band for a pre-show sound check where he coordinates with them on sonic goals and concerns, making initial adjustments to volume, balance, and EQ (equalisation). This explains why Burna Boy’s sound engineer Emmanuel Olukayode Abiola arrived in the country three days before the singer.
In the midst of the Burna performance, Mr Abiola’s job was to continue making adjustments on the fly using phenomenal ears, his knowledge and experience of mixing consoles, and quick-thinking to ensure that both performer and audience members hear what they need to hear.
