Grammy award-winning Afrobeats sensation, Burna Boy, has opened up about his deep connection to Jamaican heritage and Caribbean culture.
In a recent interview with Capital Xtra in London, Burna Boy shared how his early exposure to Caribbean music came through his father, who often played Jamaican dancehall legends like Super Cat during his childhood.
He revealed that there was a point in his life when he felt more aligned with Jamaican culture than Nigerian.
“Jamaica has always been a part of me,” he said. “From my dad playing Super Cat and others when I was a kid, to me ending up in Brixton while almost every Nigerian in the UK was in school or in Peckham I ended up in Brixton.”
Burna Boy explained that during that period, he was surrounded not by Nigerians, but by other African and Caribbean communities.
“So, I considered myself more Jamaican at the time. Simply because everyone around me was Jamaican or Caribbean,” he said. “There were very few Nigerians around me then. When I go back to Nigeria, I’m truly Nigerian. But while I was here [in the UK], I was Jamaican.”
He added that even the Africans he spent time with were mostly Gambians, Ugandans, and Congolese, not Nigerians.
“There were only two Nigerians in my crew,” he recalled.
