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Burna Boy’s Night at the Madison Square Garden.
On the 28th of May 2022, the Nigerian Afroabeats singer, Burna Boy, had perhaps the most prominent stage moment of his already illustrious career. The Madison Square Garden New York was all his for two hours. The 20,000 capacity arena was sold out for his “One Night in Space” concert. The Madison Square Garden, arguably the most famous arena globally, was mainly packed full of concertgoers of African descent.
For those who could not be in New York for the concert — myself included — the entire event was streamed on the artiste’s official Youtube page. He performed for precisely 2 hours and 18 minutes. Before Burna Boy, whose real name is Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, got to the stage, he had a sit down with Trevor Noah on his Daily Show some days earlier. I noted his pushback when Mr Noah emphasized that Burna Boy is the first Nigerian artiste to sell out the MSG. “Why is that when it’s about me, there is always “first to do this”, like the first to land on the moon”. He was quick to remark that the same does not apply to an American artiste who performs for the first time in Tokyo.
I, too, find such qualifications often ascribed to Blacks and Africans highly problematic. Yet, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that Burna Boy has picked up on this fine distinction because many who employ such descriptions, like Trevor Noah, are well-meaning while being oblivious to its constricting facet. The way I see it is that the attempt to tag an African as the first to achieve a certain height within a Eurocentric context is an apparatus of curtailment. The notion of the “first African” puts a stopgap to a richer appraisal of the contextual and historical links constituting the genealogy of an event for which a person is designated “the first”. Much of the impulses propelling commendable achievements by Africans are predicated on the fact that Blacks/Africans, as it stands, are undergoing the process of reimagining their history and writing their narrative.
Moreover, the current disposition is an inkling that the future of humanity depends on unleashing, unto the world, this untapped energy coming from such places as Africa. It does not seek to contend nor be measured by parameters set by the logic of Western mainstream. Burna Boy was tacitly saying: I can perform (and probably have) to an audience of…
