Burna Boy is currently on a media promo tour for his sixth studio album, Love, Damini released on 2 July 2022. Burna Boy linked with Apple Music's Zane Lowe for a conversation where his sold-out Zimbabwe performance in June became a topic.
Allegations were made at the time that Burna Boy was offered money by Zanu PF politicians to wear a scarf with Zimbabwean colours on stage during his performance but the Nigerian singer turned it down. Zane Lowe basically confirms the allegation whilst Burna Boy says he "turned down the offer to keep his music free from politics" and is "seen more as a transformative piece of art."
During the Apple Music Interview, around the 5:01 mark, Zane Lowe says, "Something really jumped out to me in your recent activities and that was that you played a sold-out show at a stadium in Zimbabwe and you made a decision not to let politics enter into your environment even though there was an incentive to do that and you made a decision to not let that let that experience be leveraged for one reason or another. Can you just take us a little deeper into that moment because being such a powerful entertainer and such a strong voice for the community it makes sense that others would try to reach your audience through you and you have to have a lot of strength to keep that in a place where it belongs rather than letting it come and influence your process so how is that experience for you?
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| Burna Boy with band members on stage, June 3, 2022, in Harare, Zimbabwe Image by Vigorous Youth Aesthetics/GREEDYSOUTH |
They offered him money to wear the scarf, and he refused twice!
— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) June 4, 2022
The youthful ZANUPF councilor and Deputy Minister were so upset at the rejection, one of them mumbled, “Hatidye sadza kumba kwaMai vake.”
Safe travels @burnaboy, you are not a fool like the washed up boxer! pic.twitter.com/fl9POfxHVn
Burna Boy then responds "For me, it's something I've dealt with my whole career so it's not anything new for me. I don't know why anyone feels like it's something new. It's something that if you research uh far enough you see that I've dealt with this my whole career like I've turned down, how do I even put this in a way that is nice, but I've turned down things that even greater men than me could not turn down you know because I do not want any involvement in politics and trickery you understand and I've always made my stance clear where all of that is concerned so I see no reason for surprise, yeah it's not so much a surprise it's more just how do you maintain your resolve as those as the trickery gets louder right you maintain drinking water it's natural food it's something that is who I am it's just what it is it's just you get me if you don't like fish you don't like fish they're not going to grow until 60 years old and say oh I like fish now when your whole life you're not like this is the same concept."
Check out the conversation below
Here's a clip from a recent interview of Burna Boy where he's being asked by Zane Lowe about how he avoided being politically influenced when he performed in Zimbabwe a month ago #BurnaBoyLiveInHarare pic.twitter.com/7gdjnbeqm6
— Greedysouth (@greedysouth) July 12, 2022
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