Burna Boy continues his historic run on his world tour, packing arenas worldwide. Following his historic show in the UK, the Afrobeats artists create history stateside as the first African artist to sell out a stadium in the U.S.
The “Last Last” hitmaker performed in front of a packed audience at the Citi Field in Queens, NY, on Saturday (July 8), filling out a reported 41,000 seats as record numbers of fans came out to see him perform, Vanguard reported. In April this year, Burna created history as the first Nigerian artist to headline a U.S. Stadium tour.
The Nigerian artist, whose real name is Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, also brought out UK rapper Dave as well as his sister to perform at the sold-out show in the Big Apple. During his set, Burna Boy performed his biggest hits, including “Last Last,” “Common Person,” “Ye,” “For My Hand,” his new song “Stiin’ On Top Of The World” with 21 Savage, and performed a snippet of an unreleased song “Big 7.”
Burna Boy has been having the best year of his career, transcending to the top of the Afrobeats genre, making himself one of the most streamed and most sought-after artists on the planet when it comes to touring.
Undoubtedly Afrobeats has been on a steady rise over the past decade, but the last five years saw the genre explodes reaching over 13 billion streams on Spotify alone in 2022. While other artists like Wizkid and Davido are foundation Afrobeats artists doing big things for the genre, Burna Boy has certainly let his presence felt, especially this year.
Super producer Swizz Beatz recently raised eyebrows when he took credit for the popularity of Wizkid and Burna Boy in the United States. In an interview on the Roundtable Podcast on Amazon Music, Swizz says he was the first person to introduce the two artists to the U.S. music market.
“See the key thing that you say was you got on a plane and you stuck on Afrobeats. I introduced Wizkid to America. I was the first person to play his song, me and my wife [Alicia Keys] was on a trip and we danced to his songs,” Swizz said.
“I was the first person to bring Burna Boy to the States. He had a Ruff Ryder bandana on when I introduced him on the stage. When I was playing ‘Fela Kuti’, people thought I was being too African, and that’s how ignorant the energy was at that time you know what I’m saying but I didn’t let that stop me from moving what I’m moving because it is what it is. It’s about education,” he continues.
While Burna Boy never responded to what Swizz Beatz said, Wizkid previously thanked Chris Brown for helping his career back in the day by sharing his platform.
