Operation Burna Boy

In a stadium in Queens, the Afrobeats star and his inner circle pull off his biggest U.S. show to date.

Burna Boy is on time. In fact, the Afrobeats star is early, to the pleasant surprise of his fans who know otherwise. By the time he appears on the Citi Field stage in Queens to the screams of thousands in the sold-out stadium, flashing his flirtatious grin before launching into a two-hour set, he’s been at the venue for six hours.

In that time, he’s done two sound checks: the first as soon as he arrives, and the second to double-check he can be heard above the bangs and booms of a pyrotechnics rehearsal. A friend drives Burna to the stage — in a golf cart stuffed with five other people — where they remain for a total of ten minutes for each check. That’s enough time, Burna’s cousin Shawn Ogulu assures me, because Burna knows the show backward and forward. Ahead of his sold-out show (the stadium holds 41,000 people) on July 8, he shows no sign of being nervous, smiling with the dozen or so friends and family he’s brought with him, some of whom couldn’t be squeezed into Burna’s golf cart and have to navigate Citi Field in separate, similarly packed carts.

Burna, as nearly everyone in his orbit calls him, spends the rest of his preshow ritual tucked away in a dressing room in the basement of the stadium, his multiple security guards swiftly closing a curtain blocking the room from the hallway each time someone walks into his space. Burna’s inner circle — the folks who, according to Matthew “Baus” Adesuyan, co-founder of the label Bad Habit and one of Burna’s closest collaborators, “keep the vibes up and keep Burna happy” — includes some cousins, uncles, and, most notably, his younger sister Ronami Ogulu, who creative-directs her brother’s concerts and weighs in on everything from Burna’s wardrobe to the movements of crew members backstage.

“The team here is new and there are many moving parts, so I have to make sure that all the Ts are crossed and Is are dotted,” she says, striding from the stage to a room across the hallway from Burna’s dressing room, which she’s claimed as her office. For most of the day, she’s been speed-walking around the stadium with a stack of documents and a pen. When her phone rings and someone on the other side lets her know Burna needs to be ready to go onstage at 9:15 instead of 9, she rushes to the closest call sheet, taped to a door nearby, and relays the changes.

Burna Boy in his designated Citi Field golf cart, waiting to go onstage to start the show.

In his dressing room with his sister and tour creative director, Ronami Ogulu.

Mama Burna was one of the last people to speak with the musician before he took the stage.

Walking up the stairs to the Citi Field stage.

Burna Boy in his designated Citi Field golf cart, waiting to go onstage to start the show.

In his dressing room with his sister and tour creative director, Ronami Ogulu.

Mama Burna was one of the last people to speak with the musician before he took the stage.

Walking up the stairs to the Citi Field stage.

When 9:15 rolls around, Burna is wheeled to the stage dressed in a silver-pleated Robert Wun ensemble. Moments before he steps in front of the audience, he sits in his golf cart listening closely as his mother (known on set as Mama Burna) cradles his head and whispers to him while an uncle (who goes by Uncle T on set) attempts to shield them from view.

Saturday’s concert — the 32-year-old’s biggest in the United States — is the first time a Nigerian artist is headlining a stadium show in this country. Last year, Burna made history when he became the first Nigerian artist to headline Madison Square Garden, a venue that can contain just half the audience at Citi Field. His rise to MSG and Citi comes after years of steady work and smaller New York shows. In 2017, he played at the Palladium Times Square (which holds just over 2,000 people), in 2018 at the Gramercy Theater (just under 500 people), and in 2019 at the Apollo Theater (around 1,500 people).

Burna is a celebrity of several orders of magnitude around the world, whose sixth studio album, 2022’s Love, Damini, became the highest debut of an African album on the Billboard 200 and earned him a Grammy nomination. He regularly sells out stadium-size shows abroad, but Burna’s team considers his stardom in the U.S. to be new and therefore precarious. “America’s different. It’s a tougher market to crack,” Adesuyan tells me. “We have to say to people, ‘You’re not just Black American, you’re from Africa.’”

The Citi Field set was inspired by Burna’s favorite birthday as a child — “maybe his 10th or 12th,” Ronami says, which he spent at a carnival. The centerpiece of the stage is a red-and-white striped carousel that appears on the cover of Love, Damini. Video screening throughout the concert depicts a young boy making his way through fairgrounds. Halfway through the show, Burna rises on a platform surrounded by several cakes, tells the crowd he’ll be celebrating his birthday (July 2) for the whole month, and proceeds to sing “It’s Plenty.”

The dancers and singers in the show say they work collaboratively to come up with choreography that resonates with audience members who don’t know Igbo and Yoruba.

Joined onstage by pole dancers to perform the song “Secret.”

Burna and his birthday cakes.

The dancers and singers in the show say they work collaboratively to come up with choreography that resonates with audience members who don’t know Igbo and Yoruba.

Joined onstage by pole dancers to perform the song “Secret.”

Burna and his birthday cakes.

Burna was reserved backstage, keeping to himself when he wasn’t politely interacting with venue staff, but in performance mode, he jumps from one side of the stage to the other, dancing, chanting, throwing off his jacket, whipping around bras, gyrating. Before singing “For My Hand,” co-written by Ed Sheeran, he tells the “ladies” in the audience that if they don’t have a man, he’s their man for the night. When he brings out Dave to sing their song, “Location,” the crowd goes wild. Eventually, he replaces his silver outfit with a red one, and then he takes that off and performs shirtless for the rest of the night.

In addition to the carnival imagery, lyrics to certain songs like “Ye” and “Last, Last” appear on the screens behind the artist, turning Citi Field into a megachurch with Burna as its pastor. A choir and dancers echo his lyrics onstage, clarifying words unknown to non-Yoruba and -Igbo speakers. When he sings “Odogwu” — which means “victor” in Igbo — the dancers hail him in celebration. When Burna sings “Collateral Damage” — a song about inequality and police violence in Nigeria — the dancers and singers throw their fists in the air. “Even though everyone might not know exactly what he’s saying, they know it’s got to do with a political movement and he’s a vehicle in that,” Deborah Adefioye, one of the show’s choreographers, tells me. In the audience, people throw their hands up, too.

Letting the audience sing some short songs and intros a cappella.

Even when Burna was quiet, the audience didn’t let up its screams.

Fans dancing to Afrobeats and Amapiano songs by other artists, including Burna Boy’s sister Nissa, who performed before he took the stage.

Letting the audience sing some short songs and intros a cappella.

Even when Burna was quiet, the audience didn’t let up its screams.

Fans dancing to Afrobeats and Amapiano songs by other artists, including Burna Boy’s sister Nissa, who performed before he took the stage.

The Citi Field crowd reflects Burna’s ability to mix, match, and blend cultures in his music. There were audience members in agbadas, bubas, and sokotos, but there was also plenty of Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Prada, Zara, Shein, and vintage. On an elevator to the arena, Moroccan Americans speak French; moments later some Ghanaians speak Twi; and a security guard from Guiana says, in English, that her friends and family love Burna, even though she only knows “Last Last,” the song he previewed at Madison Square Garden last year that went on to be a hit. In Queens, he previews another song, “Big 7,” a tribute to seven of his closest friends and family members — his innermost inner circle.

“New York is the best testing ground for this shit,” Burna says to the crowd. As fireworks explode above the stadium, he shouts, “I love you, New York City.” And the fans scream back, “We love you, Burna Boy.”

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