Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, known professionally as Burna Boy, saw his trajectory recently reach another milestone when he collaborated with Colombian singer Shakira for Dai Dai, the official song of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
The song topped Billboard\u2019s Global 200 and Global Excluding United States (U.S.) charts and later passed 1 billion YouTube views, giving Ogulu another platform in which African music competes at a global scale.<\/p>\n
However, it was not the World Cup stage that made Burna Boy global, he already was, confirming just how far his music had already taken him.<\/p>\n
Ogulu\u2019s international breakthrough began with his single Ye, followed by his African Giant and Twice As Tall albums, the latter earning him his first Grammy in 2021 for Best Global Music Album.<\/p>\n
In a 2024 interview with the Financial Times (FT), Ogulu said his ambition was to tell authentic stories about a Nigerian southern city, Port Harcourt, where he spent part of his formative years, and Africa, while creating music capable of resonating with audiences worldwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just being myself,\u201d he said to FT, describing his approach as answering his artistic calling regardless of market expectations.<\/p>\n
That philosophy has seemingly become part of his business model.<\/p>\n
Ogulu, according to industry insiders, has demonstrated that cultural specificity can be an asset in the global marketplace rather than an obstacle to it.<\/p>\n
His music draws from Afrobeat, Afrobeats, reggae, dancehall, hip-hop and other traditions, while his songwriting and performances remain deeply connected to Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe understood that reaching the world didn\u2019t require diluting where the music came from,\u201d says Shawn Thwaites, a music executive, recording artist and global music strategist, to FORBES AFRICA.<\/p>\n
That distinction, according to Thwaites, matters because Ogulu\u2019s career has effectively challenged an assumption in the international music industry that African artists must adapt themselves to Western markets before those markets will embrace them.<\/p>\n
Instead, global audiences increasingly came to Ogulu.<\/p>\n
Olanrewaju \u2018Elbama\u2019 Onipede Jr., an entertainment consultant and media personality, believes the strategy was not accidental.<\/p>\n
He points to Ogulu\u2019s family heritage as an important advantage. His grandfather, Benson Idonije, managed Afrobeat pioneer, Fela Kuti, and his mother, Bose Ogulu, became his manager.<\/p>\n
But this alone cannot produce a global touring business. Ogulu\u2019s team, according to Onipede Jr., built a network of international collaborations that helped introduce him to audiences far beyond Nigeria, working with artistes like Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Sam Smith and J Balvin.<\/p>\n
In Onipede Jr.\u2019s estimation, those relationships created something more valuable than individual hit records: they created a distribution network.<\/p>\n
Munya Chanetsa, Managing Director of EMPIRE Publishing Africa, describes Ogulu\u2019s growth as almost territory by territory\u2014Nigeria, the wider African continent, South Africa, the United Kingdom (U.K.) and, eventually, the U.S. and global market.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t just releasing music into these markets. He was present in them, collaborated within them and built audiences in them,\u201d Chanetsa explains to FORBES AFRICA.<\/p>\n
The live performances side of the business, according to him, became particularly important.<\/p>\n
Ogulu made history in 2022 as the first Nigerian artiste to headline Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
The following year, he became the first African artiste to headline London\u2019s 80,000-capacity London Stadium as part of his Love, Damini tour.<\/p>\n
For Chanetsa, these performances demonstrate that African music could generate not only streams but substantial ticket-buying demand in some of the world\u2019s most competitive entertainment markets.<\/p>\n
For investors, promoters and brands, that is a different kind of proof.<\/p>\n
\u201cLive is where cultural demand becomes measurable commercial demand,\u201d Chanetsa says.<\/p>\n
That demand has implications well beyond Ogulu.<\/p>\n
African music\u2019s international rise creates opportunities for promoters, publishers, producers, managers, technology companies, festivals and investors.<\/p>\n
CISAC\u2019s 2025 Global Collections Report, based on 2024 data, found that Africa generated \u20ac90 million ($104.4 million) in creator royalties, up 14.2% and the fastest growth of any region.<\/p>\n
Global collections reached \u20ac13.97 billion ($16.2 billion).<\/p>\n
Chanetsa points to Ogulu\u2019s Last Last as an illustration of how publishing works when African music travels.<\/p>\n
The hit samples Toni Braxton\u2019s He Wasn\u2019t Man Enough, bringing international songwriters into the royalty chain of a Nigerian global hit.<\/p>\n
He notes that the lesson is straightforward: when music crosses borders, intellectual-property rights and revenues cross them too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, known professionally as Burna Boy, saw his trajectory recently reach another milestone when he collaborated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-630975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}