BURNA REBORN
Burna Boy's NATIVE cover story is a rare glimpse into the life of the country's most mercurial talent.
The Boy from Port Harcourt has always been preordained as The Chosen One. Now, five years since his first single, he is ready for it all
Words: Ayoade Bamgboye
Photography: Chris Okoigun
Styling: Ronami Ogulu
LAGOS – “I feel like I’ve been Burna Boy since before I was born”, he exhaled rather matter-of-factly halfway through our conversation, “I’ve always been this guy”.
The house itself was unsuspecting. I don’t know why I had envisaged something strange but beautiful, a unique structure that young children could point at and say “that’s Burna’s House”, in some sort of Disney neighbourhood-hero type of way. But even that wouldn’t make much sense – despite his seemingly permanent relocation to Lagos (and currently, Lekki), Burna is, rather aptly put by the man himself at his debut show in 2011, “a Bad Boy from Port Harcourt”. In an adopted city, he has surrounded himself with family, and friends that have become family, but he still carries the aura of a mythologised outsider operating in his own world.
One of Burna’s bredrins (he refers to all of his inner circle as his bredrins), Shalala, was nice enough to escort me upstairs. We came to a small living room once we got in, and there was a child staring intently at me, eating a slice of pawpaw. Burna later told me that this phenomenal painting of the child was done by his sister, as were most of the others around the house. After walking up three floors, each one a variation of a large television, sofas and artwork, we finally came to a room. I’d call it a bedsit, but having a bedsit in the middle of a mansion is a bit of a paradox. It was technically a “bedroom”, the giant bed giving that much away. But it was populated with what felt like a hundred people, in addition to a living room and a fully stocked bar, so it didn’t really feel like one. I still had to ask Burna if this indeed was where he spends his nights. Sensing I was confused by the sheer volume of bodies, he laughed before retorting that “everywhere is everywhere.” By the end of my stay with him, I had become used to these effortlessly cryptic remarks which made no sense at all, but at the same time, all the sense in the world.
Since his relocation to Lagos in the early 2010’s, and the subsequent release of his needle-moving debut album L.I.F.E (Leaving an Impact For Eternity), Burna has long been painted by various parts of the press as an enfant terrible of sorts. From controversial Felabration outfits to imaginative rumours of the reason behind his prolonged absence from the UK, the traditional media in the country seem to be preoccupied with everything in Burna’s life other than the actual music. He admits he’s not blameless in this situation though, sometimes adding fuel to the fire by sparking back at the incessant press-operated rumour mill surrounding the music industry. “If I ever react to something in the industry, it’s because my fans keep going on about it,” he explains, “I just feel the need to appease them. Without them there’s nothing really, so I might as well.”
Is there anything you’ve done or said that you regret?
Anything that I’ve done or said that I haven’t meant, I apologise then and there for it. It doesn’t take me long to process stuff, everything I do, there’s a reason for it, but sometimes the way I pass a message, it’s just rah, mine’s landed like a slap.
His responses to questions about the industry (and thus his peers within the industry) are measured but blunt. He wouldn’t be drawn on how he felt about fellow artists jumping into the studio with anyone and everyone in the States. What in the past may have come across as marginally slighted by the perceived lack of critical acclaim, his tone and body language is decidedly different. Burna knows he is meant to be here. He doesn’t need you or me to rave about his album to remind him of his talent. Despite humorous jabs such as him stating “they know who to go to for stuff like that” when asked about being involved in political campaigns, he has successfully found a way to operate and exist outside of a mundane music industry muzzled by sponsorship millions, whilst still dictating the direction of the mainstream sound.
If nothing else, Burna Boy knows who Burna Boy is, and what he’s meant to be doing. Asked to describe himself with only 3 words, he said, “Real, great and…” he paused briefly. “I know what I want to say for the last one, but I don’t know it in English,” he pondered, before swiftly saying it in Yoruba “E li to mo na”. I stare at his blankly, wondering whether or not I should confess that I know very little Yoruba, if any at all. He was silent, so I imagined he assumed I knew what he said, at which point I had to ask, “what does that mean?”, to which he calmly replied after some more thought, “One who knows his own road.” How fitting, I thought to myself, as Burna stated this with the calm of someone who truly knows himself.
How would you describe your process of creating?
I’m not a rapper, or a singer, I’m not even an Afrobeats singer, I’m an Afro-Fusionist, it’s a spiritual genre of music, it just comes. You get chosen and it just works out for you.
No plan, no process? Isn’t that scary, aren’t you ever worried that it just won’t come?
Nope. If it wasn’t gonna come, then I wouldn’t even be here in the first place.
This sort of answer becomes somewhat of a regular occurrence during my stay with Burna: he completely believes that he was chosen to be here, doing what he is doing, and the explanation for his success is really that simple. His unwillingness to identify as an Afrobeats artist is particularly intriguing, given the legacy of the genre and his family ties to the legendary Fela Kuti; but it’s understandable that he wouldn’t want to box himself into a genre that means so much more than a certain tempo.
Pop music in Africa is slowly becoming one of the continent’s biggest exports. Watching the growth of the respective House and Hip Hop scenes in South Africa has been nothing short of inspiring, but the resurgence of African Pop music in West Africa has been breathtaking. In a world where everyone is more connected to one another than ever before, Nigerian music has travelled faster and further than many could have imagined. These days it is not uncommon to hear a Wizkid or Davido song at the club in New York. It is no longer a surprise to hear a Mr. Eazi sleeper hit on UK radio stations. When your favourite Instagram model posts a video dancing to a Burna Boy song, it’s not that unexpected.
But this sudden obsession with sounds from the motherland is not without explanation. Nigeria has long been seen as the home of the “Afrobeat”, birthed by the legendary Fela Kuti. Arguments about the exact definition of Afrobeats, what it is and what it is not, are even more heated than those seen in the UK regarding the definition of Grime. In the mid-noughties, mainstream artists started to slowly shift away from traditional Afrobeats, allowing their music to be influenced by Hip-Hop, Rap, R&B and other more contemporary sounds. Like every truly great genre, Afrobeats evolved to have its own sub-genres, appealing to different legions of fans. This seismic shift birthed the superstars of the 2010s: D’Banj, Tiwa Savage, P-Square and many more.
“I am Afro-Fusion, so you’re talking about where I am and where I’m going to be”
As the musical landscape in Hip-Hop and R&B shifted overseas, modern Afrobeats followed suit, in true pop music fashion. Burna Boy has always been seen as one of the pioneers of this shift, incorporating Dancehall and Hip-Hop on his earliest recordings, such as the encapsulating “Freedom Freestyle” off the Burn Notice mixtape in 2011, where he allegedly addresses his first stint in the UK. Artists like Odunsi [The Engine] and Mr Eazi have been quoted as classifying themselves under the genre “Afro-Fusion”, a fitting term to describe the sound of modern pop music in Africa: Afrobeats with a mix of pretty much everything else. Many other acts have since gone on to identify their music with this definition, but Burna Boy very much sees himself as the only frontier of Afro-Fusion. It’s more than a genre to him, it’s spiritual.
How do you feel Afro-Fusion is evolving? What can we expect from where it is now, and where it will be?
I am Afro-Fusion, so you’re talking about where I am and where I’m going to be, you get me? I’m just going along with it. It’s fusion because it’s everything. Whatever the spirit decides, that’s what it’s going to be.
How would you describe the spirit, is it like a feeling, or a vibe?
I don’t know! That’s like asking me to explain what the air is like, sometimes it’s cloudy, sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes there’s smoke in it, it’s just what it is. You get me?
Your music is quite political, in that there are clear connections with current sociopolitical issues – do you feel like music should be politicised?
No, I don’t only make music like that. I make music about stupid stuff too. It’s a spiritual thing so it’s whatever I’m feeling that day. It’s just a mixture of feelings and vibes.
Do you feel a dilution in the culture of our music with the rise of international collaborations?
I’ve done a million of them, you’re going to hear too many next year, it’s not a secret, there are features with Grammy winners and all that. I’ve never actually approached people before, I think that’s what happens when you’re original and real, you get me? There’s going to be an attraction when your style is clear.
Family First
Burna sauntered around in nothing more than boxers and a warm smile, “Welcome to My Dojo” he laughed, as smoke filled the room. After I politely declined the “holy grail” on this occasion, I was offered a snack from his bedside drawer, which was literally filled to the brim with all kinds of sweet treats. I opted for a miniature Twix bar, he had a hot dog and a can of Coke, incidentally not from his bedside drawer.
It’s intriguing, the way he alternates between brother, son, partner and artist, never fully stepping out of each role, being all of them at the same time. He says as much himself when I ask him how he separates Burna Boy from Damini Ogulu. “My mum calls me Burna Boy, it’s the same thing. It’s like I’ve been Burna Boy since before I was Burna Boy, I’ve always been this guy. There wasn’t a time where I was like, yeah, I’m going to be this guy now.” He says incessantly. “There was no development, that’s just the way I was born. If you look at baby pictures, I look the same. It’s mad. When I was little I looked like this, like I had one haircut till I was 23, the same haircut, you know the Burna Boy haircut? I always had that. Then I got tired of it and grew dreads.” His impassioned answer reminded me of Gloria Carter’s monologue on The Black Album opener “December 4th”, where she says she knew Jay Z was going to be “special” because she didn’t go through any pain during his birth. The notion that those closest to icons-to-be somehow always knew they would go on to be great isn’t new, but with Burna Boy, it seems perfectly believable.
“I feel like I’ve been Burna Boy since before I was born.”
A couple of weeks later at the inaugural NATIVELAND Festival, Burna was deep in conversation backstage as J Hus ripped through hits like “Friendly” and “Dem Boy Paigon” for an adoring crowd. Flanked by his tenacious momager Mrs. Bose Ogulu, and his sister Ruonami who doubles up as his stylist, they were looking through some of the early edits of the photographs from his NATIVE Cover Shoot. “This one is sick, please send it to me!” he tells Chris Okoigun, as he stares intently at an epic shot of himself draped in a white robe, holding his trademark trap-phone, with smoke escaping from his mouth. Mrs. Ogulu agrees, “Yes please send them all to us,” she states before turning to directly to Chris, “but obviously we can’t use that one in the magazine,” she asserts firmly, with a wry smile on her face as she looks back to her son. He laughs, as if he already knew what was coming, and accepted her decision but insisted he still wanted the photo for his own personal collection.
This short exchange between son and mother, artist and manager, performer and booking agent, is pivotal to understanding the success of Burna Boy. He trusts her to protect him and his interests, taking care of the smallest problems and the biggest problems, so he can do what he does best: make music and perform it. In turn she trusts him to do just that, in a way that only he knows how. This isn’t to say that they do not disagree on certain issues, or argue like any parent and child do, but the fundamental trust is always there.
Mrs. Ogulu herself grew up in music, ironically the daughter of one of the most notorious music critics in the highlife era, Benson Idonije. He also famously managed Fela, leading to a young Bose Ogulu touring with Fela and his band, so she’s not really a typical mother-manager. She was born into music, just as her son was. As mercurial and impulsive as Bose’s Son is, it is her job to find a way to organise the madness. Managerial masterstrokes such as Burna consistently performing all over the continent, particularly in South Africa, where she has strategically aligned him with the biggest acts out there, may go unnoticed. Burna Boy doing shows in far-flung cities all over Nigeria that his mainstream counterparts conveniently omit from their tours is not by coincidence. “All the shows are equally crazy,” he says when I ask about the sold out stadium gig he recently did in Makurdi. After a similarly sold-out Homecoming show at the Hammersmith Apollo, he embarked on an unrelenting UK club tour for over a month, playing in multiple cities. These strategic moves engineered by Mrs. Ogulu is what has gained her the trust of her pride and joy, and it is what lets him be the free spirit his fans love.
* * *
From my sunken position on the sofa in Burna’s room I looked around, and was reminded that we weren’t alone. I asked Burna who was who, half expecting him to dish out some sort Arya Stark-inspired response like “The bredrins have no name”. But he pointed out Dante, AK, Montana and Shalala, each of them smiled warmly.
Are they all your best friends?
They’re my brothers, I don’t have friends, I have brothers. You think it’s a manner of speaking when I say they’re not my friends, they’re my brothers, but it’s real. Do you think if someone put a gun to your head they’d jump in front of the bullet? With me, if you can’t do that you won’t be around me. I’d jump in front of a bullet for them. You should always think about that, because at the end of the day, the people around you are important, they can make or break you
Do you make music with any of them?
[Laughing] None of them make music, these are real niggas you’re talking about, you have to understand that, these are not “popping champagne in the club” niggas.
Just like his relationships with his actual family, Rankin’ (as his fans affectionately call him) believes that mutual trust and loyalty are fundamental to being in his inner circle. He’s unbothered by material possessions and award shows. More so than anything, he wants the people around him to be more than comfortable. Every artist needs a support system when they’re creating – it’s what gives them the unerring freedom to do nothing more than make art – and Burna appreciates this, and always wants to give back to the people who give him the foundation to make music for a living. Whether it’s taking care of his more-than-blood brothers, or making sure his sister gets styling gigs for all his shoots, Burna sees to it at that the proverbial 15% is given to “people he fucks with”, to quote his latest collaborator Drake.
What do you feel like is a logical next step in terms of the progression of your musical career?
I don’t know (insistently) I just take life as it comes, at the end of the day there’s no point planning stuff because it’s never going to turn out how you planned, if it does, then it means that’s how it was meant to be. I just feel like, life is just easy like that. It’s not that complex.
What has worked so far?
The music. And being me.
What hasn’t worked?
The music, and being me.
On “My Life”, the opening track of his debut album , Burna repeatedly croons “This is just the way I am/this was not my plan”, and watching him in his element, this seems more and more like case. Burna is really just out here being himself, and sometimes it goes right and sometimes it goes wrong. Some may say his refusal to separate Burna Boy from Damini Ogulu is affecting his career, but that may be just what sets Oluwaburna apart from his contemporaries. In the music industry in Nigeria, artists go through such extreme lengths to separate their musical identities from their true identity in some faux-WWE manner, caricaturing to the point of parody. That has led some listeners to question how authentic either character is, if at all. Burna is simply incapable of this: music is his life, and always has been. It’s his gift and his curse. His fans love his genuine honesty, his peers seemingly don’t. As pop music is once again becoming one of Africa’s biggest exports, it’s refreshing to see one of the leaders of the revolution so impassioned by it.
I ask Burna about new music, expecting verbal descriptions of what’s to come, but Burna offers to play me what he’s been working on. Well, he didn’t really offer. He asked me, then just started playing it. I wasn’t complaining though. As he shuffled from one expectedly-amazing collaboration to another not-so-expected, but equally amazing duet, I couldn’t help but watch him just as intently as I was listening to the music. Despite playing the music “for me”, he didn’t once ask what I thought or even grant me a cursory glance, echoing his own earlier statement that he knows his road. This wasn’t some early critics’ listening session: he genuinely just wanted to listen to his music and I happened to be with him at the time.
“Welcome To My Dojo”
As he switched tracks to a collaboration with a Grammy winner that must have been constructed in Reggae Heaven, my attention turned away from the self-proclaimed Rockstar and to the people he calls his brothers. These are the people who he spends most of his time with when he’s not performing. They play FIFA for hours, fire up the BBQ on the weekends, and do pretty much what any mid 20s group of guys do in their free time. But something struck me as odd during the song: they were rapping every bar, crooning every trademark Burna melody, as if they were listening to the track for the first time. Each one of Shalala, AK and Montana were performing the song like it was theirs, finishing off bars, going back and forth like they would in a cypher, letting the music move them, just as Burna lets the music move him. This excitement would have been appropriate if this was the first time they had heard the song, but it clearly wasn’t, judging by the near perfect recall of the lyrics. Burna and his partner seemed unmoved by his bedroom becoming something in-between a raucous club night and an emotional deliverance service: I guess this wasn’t the first time.
As I drove away from Burna’s House questioning whether I had bredrins who would take a bullet for me, I felt I had witnessed something larger than me, something way more than just a smoke session and a preview of unreleased songs. Burna’s brothers weren’t brainwashed yes-men trying to score points. They weren’t fanboys lucky to be around their favourite artist and freaking out. They weren’t even childhood friends just trying to support their mate who makes music. Shalala, AK and Montana were believers.
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Studio monkey shoulder is funding ideas to bring music communities to life
N20 million up for
Following a successful first campaign, Studio Monkey Shoulder returns to Nigeria for the second year in a row. A brainchild of the Scottish Whisky brand Monkey Shoulder and online radio station Worldwide FM, Studio Monkey Shoulder is a grassroots music initiative created to fund trailblazers who are pushing sonic boundaries while also fostering real-world connections across different regions. Last year, Jazzhole received the Nigerian grant to digitally remaster rare archival recordings that preserve and celebrate Nigeria’s rich musical heritage.
This year, the competition, in continued partnership with legendary DJ and Worldwide FM founder Gilles Peterson, once again invites the country’s most innovative and ambitious grassroots music communities – everything from from independent record stores to DIY music venues, online radio stations and collectives – to apply for a £10,000 grant (₦20 million) to bring their hugely imaginative music projects to life.
“I am thrilled to see Studio Monkey Shoulder grow in its second year in partnership with Worldwide FM. It’s been a privilege to work with the communities we supported in 2024, seeing their projects thrive and come to life,” Peterson stated in a press release. “I am excited to uncover more amazing community-driven projects in Nigeria and witness the talent that comes with it as the project evolves in year two.”
The winner of this year’s grant will join an international creative network that’s designed to elevate community voices and bring their stories to a global stage. Applications for Nigeria’s Studio Monkey Shoulder Fund open on April 28th and close on June 1st.
For full details and to apply, visit this website
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How Shallipopi Bent Culture To His Will
Shallipopi embodies Street-Pop but when he says, “Worldwide Plutomanians,” it truly is a worldwide...
One of the most interesting ways that I’ve heard Shallipopi’s music described is that it does nothing for the mind and everything for the body. Recently, I had a conversation with a friend that altered this ethos: music can’t do anything for the body if it does nothing for the mind, the mind has to find those bars and melodies pleasing before backsides move. As “Ahead Ahead” plays in the background of my two-man apartment, one midnight in March, it’s fitting to explore this in more detail, to understand how Shallipopi, self-appointed Pluto Presido, has risen to such heights and what part his Benin roots play in his unrelenting rise to Pop supremacy.
Shallipopi’s Rise to Fame
Shallipopi’s story begins in Benin. To be fair, all stories start in Benin if you believe in the Bini oral pedagogy that the 825-year-old kingdom is the source of the world. The phrase, “Oba ya, oto s ‘evbo ‘ebo,” alludes to the Oba owning all the lands from Benin to the rest of the world. 25-year-old Shallipopi—born Crown Uzama—started making music in 2016, after younger brother, Zerrydl, did in 2015, as mentioned in an October 2024 Echo Room interview.
The rapper, who comes from a line of kingmakers—the Uzamas are one of the highest-ranking chiefs who anoint Obas–didn’t experience success until March 2023 with “Elon Musk” which catapulted him from South-South unknown to TikTok star, and then, breakaway mainstream success. He followed up with club banger, “Shapiru,” in April. An EFCC arrest in May for ‘alleged internet fraud’ somewhat stalled his momentum while increasing his infamy, setting the stage for a remix of “Elon Musk” in June and–in typical Hip-hop chronicle fashion—“Ex-Convict” the following month.
Since June 2023, Shallipopi has performed at the O2 Arena and Stade de France, sold out two concerts in London in 2024 on his Plutomania tour, sold out a homecoming concert at the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub in Benin City. Both of his LPs, ‘Presido La Pluto’ (2023) and ‘Shakespopi,’ (2024) debuted at No. 1 on the TurnTable Charts. The latter was the first project since Davido’s ‘Timeless’ to produce a first-week No.1 record, “ASAP.” His song with fellow 2023 breakout star, Odumodublvck, “CAST,” has over 55 million Spotify streams and earned him four nominations and a win at the 2025 Headies Awards. With co-signs from the big four, a new deal with Sony Music UK after a messy split from Dvpper Digital, and immense street cred, Shallipopi operates at the upper echelons of the industry.
The Benin Influence
The Bini—and Edo people as a whole—are music-loving. From Africa’s first gold plaque awardee, Sir Victor Uwaifo, to Alhaji Waziri Oshomah, Majek Fashek and his mystical rain-making rhythms, and an adolescent Benita Okojie at the turn of the century, contemporary Edo musicians have always found their way to national prominence, their influence being a continuation of a long-held tradition. Ethnic groups in Edo State like the Esan and Owan have a strong hold on oral music forms till today. But only a few of these groups can lay claim to sons and daughters who infuse their traditional, ceremonial music like Crown Uzama does, wielding it as all he is, all he will unapologetically be.
In December 2023, he told More Branches about how a tough childhood shaped his music. “My background was a rough one so my sound is different, and it shows in the music,” he said. “Only those who grew up in Benin City under harsh conditions will understand my sound.” And that cultural distance also shaped some of the early reception to his other releases. For example, unless you lived in Benin, or a sister city like Warri, you’re not likely to know what the term ‘Oscroh’ or ‘OS’ means. Any insight would be the product of someone in the know—like a classmate of mine, who spilled how secondary school boys in his home Benin City ‘order OS’ (patronise sex workers) after ‘cashing out’ (getting proceeds from Internet fraud or cryptocurrency deals.) This, perhaps, explains the initial poor reception to October 2023’s “Oscroh (Pepperline).” The use of Benin-specific lingo didn’t translate as smoothly as ‘Inside that your Evian,’ from “Elon Musk” seven months earlier.
Turn to 2025 and Shallipopi has one of the biggest songs in the country (“Laho.”) The chorus is sung entirely in Bini: “Ghẹ gunmwẹn dẹ ọ, lahọ/Ni paste aza, lahọ/ Don’t let me fail, please/Can I send my account number, please?” The catchy song employs traditional call-and-response rooted in Benin culture and yet it is loved far beyond our shores. Shallipopi’s dexterous use of Bini language has shown up throughout his time as a mainstream star. Many Shallipopi fans know the “Obapluto” sample, they even know about the legal dispute that ensued post-release. But elsewhere in Shallipopi’s discography, another sample leads back to Igodomigodo—the ancestral name for Edo. The intro on his second LP, ‘Shakespopi,’ “ASAP” samples Alhaji Waziri Oshomah’s 1979 single, “Ikwekiame Nedumhe.” Similarly, “Iyo,” the eighth track on his first LP, ‘Presido la Pluto,’ samples the 1978 Drivers Union Dance Band Uselu Motor Park and Osaro Nomayo single, “Ovbiyemwen,” and much like the sample on “Obapluto,” it constitutes the spine of the record.
When there’s no sample, there are shoutouts, like on “More Than Me” where he hearkens home with “Straight out of Benin for sure” and the fittingly titled “BENIN BOYS”—“Remy, Ekehuan Road/ Shalli, Sapele”—where he props up his neighbourhood on the Benin-Sapele-Warri Road, and Rema’s on Ekehuan Road in Benin. There’s evidence that Shallipopi’s music is of the people in a way that lots of Nigerian Pop is not. In clips from Mai Atafo’s Spring/Summer ‘24 Show, “Obapluto” blares right after Pa Monday Edo’s “Nogbaisi,” as models in reimagined versions of traditional Bini outfits strut the runway.
Understanding Afro-Pluto
But what is Afro-Pluto? As he referred to his sound in an October 2023 Factory78 interview: “Not straight-up hip-hop, not straight-up Afrobeats, not straight-up Afro-pop,” he explained. “Even my music is not more of singing, it’s more of talking. So there’s no one that does that except me.” In a time where every artist and their A&R wants to craft their own unique ‘sound,’ that statement isn’t so outlandish. His Benin contemporary, Rema, named his subgenre ‘Afro-Rave,’ and only fully leaned into it on October 2023’s ‘RAVAGE’ EP.
Shallipopi’s music is a fusion of Hip-Hop, Street-Pop, and Afropop. However, Afro-Pluto’s core is Hip-Hop. Shallipopi’s songs—especially on his first two projects—follow a simple pre-chorus-verse-chorus pattern with minimal internal rhymes, di-syllabic schemes, and rhythmic motifs. What he lacks in a vast vocabulary, he makes up for with same-word end rhymes and haphazard lyrics. For example, on “Speedometer” off ‘Planet Pluto,’ he raps, “Who fall go rise up again, on a speedometer/You wan know how men take dey mount/Men are men on meter/It was nice to meet ya.” It’s a simple A-B end rhyme with ‘meter’ repeated multiple times until the homophone lands on ‘meet ya.’
On “Evil Receive”—his most cherished musical creation per a February 2024 Floor Mag profile—he rhymes ‘vibe’ with ‘vibe.’ The unpredictability of his lines often falls outside conventional street wisdom. “Network no dey no mean say wi-fi disconnect” on “ASAP” is discernible—things aren’t always as they seem. But “men are men on meter” doesn’t quite translate. There’s also shock value: Legacy South-South rap acts like Erigga and Yung6ix are known to incorporate vulgarity, and Shallipopi follows in their footsteps. It’s a trait that has drawn him as many fans as foes with a hit like “CAST” and its lyrics placing that divisiveness in context.
Per his lyricism, Shallipopi embodies Street-Pop. Money, sex, fraud, family struggles, resilience, and social injustices like police brutality are subjects that he constantly returns to. He’s a man of the people: the fun-loving, night-crawling people. Shallipopi is unlike Balloranking or Seyi Vibez, Street-Pop acts who balance party staples with spotlighting the ordeals in inner-city streets, and even his brother, ZerryDL, whose storytelling prowess rivals most. In the aforementioned Floor Mag profile, he drives the point home: “Social change and my music, I don’t think they’re close to each other,” he admits. “My music is for fun and to get your mind off troubles.” It takes seeing the Pluto Dance on dimly lit dance floors to process this fully. For all its ties to home, Afro-Pluto evades the dual merriment-enlightenment function that traditional Edo music upholds.
Afro-pluto embodies Afropop through praise-singing, verbiage, and drawing from pre-existing music. Shallipopi praise-sings on “Ex Convict” like Wizkid did on 2014’s “In My Bed” and Olamide did on 2019’s “Oil & Gas.” In the two years since he burst onto the scene, he’s arguably become the biggest influencer of pop culture lexicon. ‘Men mount’ is an everyday slang to signify movement. ‘Evian’ made it into Zikoko’s Official Afrobeats Glossary. Everyone has been ‘Active’ since “Elon Musk.” Similarly, ‘OS’ has crossed the threshold that proves its thorough pervasion; misuse, or rather, abuse.
Shallipopi’s producers—especially BusyPluto, who produced all but one track on his first two projects—draw regularly from older Nigerian music. BusyPluto’s zest for older Nigerian music is evident on a song like “Eazy” which interpolates 1996’s “Diana” by Galala legend, Daddy Showkey, a musician of South-South origin. Despite interspersing elements of Afropop and Street-pop, Shallipopi’s music is Hip-hop. When he speaks about fucking his enemies with no condoms on “Never Ever,” he’s echoing Ice Cube on “No Vaseline.” His verses on ostentatious living and the nature of fame are a mainstay of the genre. There’s insufficient innovation to term ‘Afro-Pluto’ a genre. There is no novelty in production—and influential as it is, per increasing adoption, it fails to be sufficiently distinct.
The Plutomania Effect
Speaking of influence, Shallipopi’s musical impact has been felt the most at home. His younger brothers, 2025 Headies Rookie of the Year winner, Zerrydl, and new kid on the block, Famous Pluto, are ambassadors of Shalli’s homegrown rap brand. Zerry (Divine Uzama) is the most technically gifted of the three, a storytelling maestro with a flair for uncanny pockets. His one million plus Spotify listeners tell of his growing reach. The youngest, Famous Pluto (Osahon Uzama) debuted with “Na Scra” on March 7th this year, bearing similar flows and street wit as his brothers (“One round plus one round equals two bone straight.”) Their cadences are identical. Both younger brothers rap over BusyPluto’s instrumentals and are signed to Shallipopi’s Plutomania Records. Their subject matter is the same: women and the pursuit of financial freedom.
Still, the impact of Shallipopi’s sound has not only been felt at home. Due to his outsized influence and success, there are a number of acts whose works fall directly in the lineage of his syrupy, drawn-out sound; acts like Tega Boi DC and Reeha, both Plutomania Records signees and crusaders of the Benin sound. There’s Smur Lee, one of only four Nigerian female artistes with over 15 million streams on a song in 2024. The track, “JUJU,” features Odumodublvck and Shallipopi and has over 37 million Spotify streams. Her style is almost a mirror image of Shallipopi’s, with multiple Elon Musk references and fraud lingo littering her latest singles.
Beyond direct musical influence, Shallipopi’s artistry has impacted his peers who seek his raps over deep cuts (Victony’s “Ludo”), Afropop bangers with far-reaching cultural implications (Rema’s “BENIN BOYS”), and cross-border, market-focused singles (King Promise’s “Continental”). The virality of “LAHO” on the global stage – which has thousands singing along at destination nightclubs, NBA and European football superstars making TikToks, and top-5 placements on global charts like the UK’s Official Afrobeats Charts – forecasts newer zeniths for the 25-year-old phenom. It’s as welcome an outcome as any, just two years into his career in an industry peppered with stories of fadeouts after similar label splits. It also means going forward, Shallipopi is unlikely to veer off his sonic template. But his is a winning formula, so there are no worries. When he enthusiastically says, “Worldwide Plutomanians,” it truly is a worldwide phenomenon.
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Skyla Tylaa Is Taking Off
For the next phase of her career, Skyla Tylaa is actively working on creating music while entertaining with...
As a child growing up in South-east London, Skyla Tylaa had a natural affinity for the arts. Whether it was music or stage performances, she found herself exploring these interests intently from a young age. That devotion manifested in multiple ways – her attending the BRIT School and Sylvia Young Theatre School where she performed in a West End production of Annie or her fiddling with several musical instruments while she figured out her creative identity. Through it all, music was a constant, the backdrop to her home life where she grew up between Jamaican and English influences. She remembers being exposed to Drum & Bass, Funky House, and Garage. “I think that’s had a big influence in my DJ career,” Skyla Tylaa admits.
Progressing into adulthood, those musical influences persisted even if she didn’t always engage with them professionally. Things changed when she started DJ-ing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Possessed by a visceral desire to experience the euphoria of interacting with people through music, she burrowed deeper into DJ-ing. “I couldn’t be in my room and just have people commenting,” she recalls. “I need to see people’s energy, and feel everything in the moment.”
Since then, she’s enjoyed a meteoric rise that has taken the world by storm. Mentored by DJ Tunez, she performed multiple times on the American leg of Wizkid’s ‘Made In Lagos’ tour and came out of the experience raring to go. “Opening for Wizkid on his tour was a transformative experience,” she says. “It taught me a lot about resilience and adaptability in my craft. I was still pretty much a start-up DJ when I went on tour and it made me really realise how important it is to connect with the audience. Touring from city to city with different crowds, it helped me to learn how to read the room and keep the vibe going.”
Almost as importantly for Skyla Tylaa, Rihanna was present at one of those tour stops and was impressed by her set, stopping by after the show to congratulate her. “After that I felt like I could conquer the world,” she says. Since then, she’s been selected by Rihanna to DJ at a Fenty X Puma Creeper launch event in London in 2024, marking a full-circle moment between the women.
Like Rihanna, Skyla Tylaa is inspired by music from the breadth of the Black diaspora, playing sets that take as much influence from the fervid restlessness of Hip-hop as they do the wavy melodies of House music, and the dancefloor summons of Afrobeats “I love partying! I genuinely love it,” she explains. “When preparing my sets, I’m always thinking of people having a good time. Whatever I can do to connect with them, I’m down to do it!”
In the last few years, few genres have shown the propensity for inspiring a great time with the regularity that Amapiano does. From Johannesburg to Windhoek, to Lagos, London, and New York, the log drums and mutating basslines of the genre have proven integral to a new Pop framework that is as amorphous as it is exhilarating. Since first hearing the genre while on a visit to Ghana years ago, Skyla Tylaa has been hooked. “It was the log drum, the sound, just the vibes that came with it,” she says. “I was like ‘wait – what is this?’ When you hear Amapiano, it’s one of those sounds that no matter what, you’re gonna dance.”
Diving into the genre, she’s picked up valuable lessons from important figures like Maphorisa, Uncle Vinny and Major League DJz while putting her youthful spin on the sound. It’s all coming together for the DJ who’s working with her sister, music heavyweight Jada Pollock, to figure it all out one step at a time. “When I found my passion for DJing, Jada was right there, urging me to dive into the ‘Made in Lagos’ tour,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I was ready, but she believed in me and knew I could handle it. My love for music has been with me since school; it just took some time for me to realize that this was the direction I wanted to pursue. Once I found my calling, her support became endless–she attended my early gigs and pushed me to perform at major festivals like Afro Nation.”
She’s since performed at leading festivals such as Wireless, Piano People and Australia’s Promiseland as well as selling out headline shows across London, London, and Ghana. For the next phase of her career, she’s actively working on creating music. This month, she released her debut single, “Bombshell,” a searing Amapiano banger that has all the hallmarks of a potential summer hit. “Bombshell” features Tanzanian Bongo Flava act, Diamond Platnumz, as well as South African acts, Tyler ICU, Khalil Harrison, and DJ Exit. It’s a blockbuster showing that sits well in the tradition of the genre. “The idea was initially played to me by Tyler ICU in March 2024,” Skyla Tylaa says. “He and I had a session while he was in London, and this was one of the ideas we worked on. Khalil was already on it, at the time, and I loved what I heard!”
After seeding it into her live sets last summer and starting live teasers with a dance challenge, Diamond Platnumz reached out about potentially working on the song and it was arranged. “I started teasing the new version of the song in my sets and then a whole new viral dance challenge came about online in December,” she says. “From that point, I knew the track had all the elements (features included) to be a big release in 2025 !” For DJ Exit, a chance to be part of a transformative song like “Bombshell” was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up. “What drew me to this single was the chance to be part of something boundary-breaking,” he explains. “Gqom and Amapiano are both powerful in their own right, but fusing the raw, percussive energy of Gqom with the soulful, hypnotic swing of Amapiano creates a sound the world hasn’t fully experienced yet. This isn’t just another collaboration–it’s a cultural statement.”
The Xhosa word, ‘basazomangala,’ meaning ‘to be shocked,’ is uttered several times on “Bombshell,” and it reflects the message that Harrison was trying to pass on the track. ““Bombshell” is really about letting people know that there’s still so much more to come from me,” he says. “It’s a celebration of the present moment, but also a reminder that this is just the beginning. We’re all dancing to what’s happening now, but there’s an energy in the air that says the best is yet to come.”
In light of Amapiano’s rise to global prominence and the international acclaim it enjoys, Harrison is right about more things being on the horizon, and Skyla Tylaa agrees with him: “When I was introduced to Amapiano, I fell in love instantly and that time it was just on the verge of global appeal. It’s global now and still growing and that makes me appreciate it even more! I love it, and the world loves it! The feeling is mutual ! We can all enjoy it together!”
For Tyler ICU, having DJs from the diaspora like Skyla Tylaa engage with Amapiano and its culture is a win for the genre. “This shows the power of the genre–it’s not just a sound, it’s a movement,” he says. “When someone like Skyla, who appreciates the culture and brings her own flavour, plays Amapiano in places like London, New York or Toronto, she’s not just playing music, she’s building bridges. That’s how we grow–by letting the world feel it in their own way, but staying true to where it started. It’s important that the roots are respected, but the branches can reach far.”
Just a couple of weeks since its release, “Bombshell” has crossed over 650,000 thousand views on YouTube and continues to be a sensation on TikTok. Like everything Skyla Tylaa has done up till now in her career, it’s shaping up perfectly and has shown that she has a knack for the right collaborations. She intends to keep making music. “This year, my focus is all about music,” she says. “I recently signed with Robots and Humans (Sony) in the UK and Epic in the US, which has given me a different level of drive to really want to create good music. I’m also looking forward to exploring the Afro-house genre and collaborating with other talented artists.”
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