“I told them, ‘I’m a genius… I’m a real African giant!’” sings Damini Ogulu on his seventh album, I Told Them… as Burna Boy. The 32-year-old Nigerian artist has reason to crow. This June, he became the first African artist to headline the 80,000-capacity London Stadium with a gig that saw his swaggering braggadocio likeably balanced by an easy warmth and sweetly startled humility – on display each time the crowd sang his songs back to him.
That warmth rises consistently from I Told Them, with its easygoing mix of Afro pop, rap and R&B. You inhale it – soft, nourishing and moreish as if it’s steaming off freshly baked bread. There are moments of nutty chewiness, but mostly it’s stretches of pleasant, if airily bland, doughiness. “Everything nice,” he assures a paramour on the sax-backed “Tested, Trusted and Approved”. He asks her to “gyrate/ roll up on it/ submit” and “jump up on my body like animal… make sure you do nobody else like me”. It’s kinda cool’n’sexy with a tone that scores marks for making a gal feel safe. He is pure vocal iced tea, just enough bitter burned leaf to the gentle hit – but his tone is so smooth that he could very well be ordering a casual lunch.
