Stream/Download Burna Boy: African Giant Album featuring Jorja Smith, M.anifest, Damian Marley, Angélique Kidjo and others

“Saying ‘African Giant’ goes [to] a lot more than music,” Burna Boy tells Apple Music. “It’s a symbol of strength. That’s what I want my people to feel like, to realise that they are.” On the Nigerian Afrofusion kingpin’s fourth studio album, that credo of understanding your worth and truth rings through songs which address success (“Gbona”), respect (“Anybody”), love and desire (“On the Low”) and poverty, aspiration and the daily grind (“Dangote”).

Burna Boy might talk of ancestral influence overtaking his messaging and songwriting—“When it’s time for music to be made, it’s almost like my ancestors just come into me and then it’s them,” he says—but he continues to skilfully consolidate the new with the old. Leading-edge pop, hip-hop and R&B fuse with Afrobeat and reggae traditions in vibrant grooves that are rich but never overcooked. His vocals demonstrate a matching versatility, shifting gears with supercar precision and ricocheting between English, Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin. “Music is supposed to be a universal language,” he says. “You understanding what I’m saying is secondary. The primary thing is what does the person inside of you hear? What does your spirit hear? That’s the job of music—that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

1. African Giant
2. Anybody
3. Wetin man go do
4. Dangote
5. Gum body feat Jorja Smith
6. Killin Dem feat Zlata
7. Omo
8. Secret feat Jeremih serani
9. Collateral damage
10. Another story feat M.anifest
11.Pull up
12. Destiny
14. Different-feat-damian-marley-angelique-kidjo
15. Gbona
16. On the low
17. Show-tell-feat-Future
18. this-side-feat YG
19. Spiritual

Source: Apple Music