‘My vision is just to, I don’t know how to explain this in a way that makes sense to you, but [it is] to shine a light on a place and on people and a situation and everything that there hasn’t been a light on for a long time,’ Burna Boy tells the Recording Academy shortly before his album release in 2019. The ninth track on the album, ‘Collateral Damage’, is where Burna Boy delivers its first socio-political commentary. He samples Naughty by Nature’s 1999 hit, ‘Jamboree’, adding pace and insistence to its bumpy, funky Hip-Hop groove, then at a bridge, interpolates Fela Kuti’s clarion call that is ‘Sorrow Tears and Blood’. The nostalgic tune clamours for Africans, Nigerians especially, to stand up for themselves against oppression, to have no fear. Although it may have been coincidental: African Giant was released after a yet-again controversial outcome at the nation’s presidential polls.             

Like the duad of ‘Wetin Man Go Do’ and ‘Dangote’, Burna Boy ensures thematic consistency here by a follow-up in ‘Another Story’—teaming up with Ghanaian dancehall artiste, M.anifest. Burna Boy and M.anifest each render verses comparing issues that collectively plague the continent, using Nigeria and Ghana—both having gained independence from the British empire just a few years apart—as microcosms. Hear Burna Boy’s cry: ‘Since 1960 dem dey play us, why o?’ Then listen to M.anifest suck his teeth: ‘Same sh—, Ghana, Naija, man tire.’ The hook, ‘E dey pain me ga-ga o’, is Burna Boy interpolating Nigerian singer Stereoman’s 2005 recording, ‘E Dey Pain Me’. 

Burna Boy, in that same July 2019 conversation with the Recording Academy, says considering the calibre of the artistes together on ‘Different’ with him: ‘[it] is just one song that I really hold dear to my heart’, that it is ‘sentimental to him.’ Singing, Burna Boy says, ‘Different politics, people with/different qualities.’ The Jamaican Reggae legend, Damian Marley, meeting him halfway, says, ‘Different me know/Ah do it different still we similar… /Seven billion show one cinema’, then goes on to say, ‘That doesn’t mean/There’s not a big difference/Something of quality.’ Both mirror each other in rhythm, protesting that the Black race is not monolithic, before Angélique Kidjo, here again but for a charged verse this time, gives a solo, sonic rendering that takes the cosmopolitan piece off the roof in its finale. It is something that has not been heard before, this chemistry. 

Now go two tracks back: 

‘Black Ryno (Skit)’. With his riveting vocals echoing in its final production, Reggae artiste, Blak Ryno, on the only interlude on the album, is heard dragging his own pugilistic rap song from eleven years back, ‘Diss Di Link (Ay Ya Ay Ya)’, like a liturgy. Burna Boy goes on to sample the original song on the next track, ‘Destiny’. 

In artistic maturity and self-consciousness, African Giant can be compared to out-of-Fayetteville rapper J. Cole’s classic, 2014 Forest Hills Drive—although Cole’s work is more of a memoir than Burna Boy’s. ‘January 28th’, the second track on Cole’s LP, shares a parallel to the eponymous intro on Burna Boy’s album: both brag, announce their arrival, and reference God through it. Burna Boy: ‘Tell them Africa we don taya/So here comes the African Giant.’ J. Cole: ‘But check your birth date n—ga/You ain’t the god/Nah, you ain’t the god/N—ga, Cole’s the god.’ Self-portraits, both songs. Again, ‘St. Tropez’, Forest Hills Drive’s ninth track, is similar to what Burna Boy does on ‘Destiny’, rhyming a narration on his time in the UK as a youth involved in gang-related activities. Then he hints on Black marginalization, too: ‘We/were just a bunch of f-king foreigners/No one to trust/I know that they don’t want me here.’ On ‘St. Tropez’, Cole is rapping over soulful vocals on how he had to leave where he grew up to find himself in a metaphorical metropolis, ‘St. Tropez.’ ‘He’s on his way, he’s about to get/paid/He’s on his way to Hollywood.’ Both tracks are musings of a fulfilled soul. Almost two years later, ‘Destiny’ is on US President Biden’s inauguration playlist.        

But Burna Boy likes to keep it light, too. Having earlier interposed relaxing tunes like ‘Gum Body’, ‘Omo’, ‘Secret’, and ‘Pull Up’, he keeps the rest of the album merry. Tracks 15 and 16, ‘Gbona’ and ‘On the Low’, are introduced with an optimistic lead guitar. On ‘Gbona’ a bassist furthers the melody with chords that edge on Burna Boy’s textured vocals. ‘Jẹun sokè o,’ he says twice in Yorùbá at the start—a phrase which loosely translates to ‘hit it big.’ Then later, on the hook, he says, ‘Olúwa Burna mo gbóná fe̩li’, telling us that he is in red-hot form. You can tell ‘Gbona’ is Burna Boy reflecting on his rise through the ranks. On the first bridge and in the coda, he interpolates Fela’s ‘Army Arrangement’, saying, ‘Ó di wọ̀rọ̀npọ̀tọ̀.’ ‘On the Low’, a serenade to his fictional lover, Angelina, on a bewitching groove, enjoys the most commercial success on this album. A masterpiece through and through.