Burna Boy says that the track was recorded on Pete Townshend’s studio boat, though, and that added mythos gives it a little bit more juice. The title track, which features UK pop singer Mabel, is laced with EDM and while it is fun, it doesn’t have the same life as the rest of the album. But not all of the album’s influences are as sturdy. He is most confident on “Ph City Vibration.” It doubles as a mini-biography (“I was born inna the teaching hospital/The 2nd of July of 1991”) and an ode to his hometown, Port Harcourt, in Nigeria’s River States, replete with references to roasted plantains and fish and the city’s soccer stadium, Yakubu Gowon Stadium-which he still calls by its old name, Liberation, much as a lifelong Mets fan might reflexively refer to Shea. With Lily Allen on “Heaven’s Gate,” hints of highlife guitar and road rap merge into something new, but just as vibrant as its sources.
Songs like “Giddem” and “Ye,” which interpolates Fela’s “Sorrow, Tears, and Blood,” take the playfulness of 2000s pop-rap and shroud it in guitar “Sekkle Down” is a romantic take on dancehall that features UK rapper and fellow diasporic hybridist J Hus. These influences, alongside his own interest in American rap music-“I just wanted to listen to DMX,” he told The FADER in 2016-form the elements of bricolage that Burna Boy calls “afrofusion” and is fine-tuned on Outside. His father played dancehall records in their home his grandfather was once Fela Kuti’s manager. Burna Boy, born Damini Ebunoluwa Ogalu, started making beats on FruityLoops when he was 10. Some of that facility probably has something to do with his musical background. With Outside, the Nigerian musician finally gets a chance to show off his song in full-it’s the first track on the album-and to flaunt his own skill at musical synthesis. Ultimately, though, only one, a song titled “More Life,” made the cut-and even then, it was relegated to a reverb-soaked outro to “ Get It Together,” itself a rework of South African singer Bucie’s “Superman” featuring Durban house pioneer Black Coffee and Midlands R&B upstart Jorja Smith. The Afropop-dancehall hybridist ended up submitting five tracks for the project. The two had first linked up in London, where the rapper reportedly shared his vision for a “playlist” collecting sounds from around the world. “It helped me fully understand that authenticity is key and you have to stay true to your own identity.Burna Boy was supposed to get the coveted crossover cosign from Drake. “I’m thankful for all the joy and pain that went into creating this,” he says.
“I released ‘Like to Party’ and the album at a time when my sound was definitely not the norm.” Alongside guests such as Tuface, Wizkid, M.I Abaga, Timaya, Reminisce and Olamide, Burna Boy established his voice. “We are a product of our environment, experiences and breeding,” he says. Yet it's through the Fuji-esque “Ma Loda Ma Motto”, Fela-sampling “Boom Boom Boom” and socially conscious “My Cry” that we get a glimpse of both the person and the locale behind the sounds. This fusion of sounds-the localised dancehall of “#YawaDey” and the EDM-inspired “Always Love You”-revealed an artist with a unique sonic approach. “It’s my first LP that literally chronicled my life from when I was two years old, performing on tabletops at my parents’ favourite restaurant.” That narrative is housed in lyrics that are woven into hip-hop, funk, highlife, reggae, Fuji, jazz and Afrobeat-infused soundscapes, helmed by producer LeriQ. “ L.I.F.E was such a personal project for me,” he tells Apple Music. Not only gesturing to his sonic influences, Leaving an Impact for Eternity’s artwork reflects a preoccupation with legacy. On the cover of his debut album, Burna Boy appears as a child, mic in hand, superimposed over a collage of legends such as King Sunny Ade, Bob Marley and Fela Kuti.