Buju is Working on New Project

Ferdinand Ekechukwu

Seeing as rave of the moment, Buju, real name Daniel Benson has lived up to expectation and shown that he’s no fluke. The music star had on the heels of his highly acclaimed debut EP ‘Sorry I’m Late’ in 2021, followed with ‘massively successful single concert of the same title last December. Buju’s story and impact on the mainstream soundscape presents him as Nigeria’s MVP of 2021.

The aptly-titled 7-track EP, was described as another reflection of his unorthodox journey and path. ‘Sorry I’m Late’ charts the high level of Buju’s current confidence. At this moment, the singer took to social media on Sunday to announce that he will drop another project this year, precisely on his birthday on May 19, 2022. By then he would be 25.

While 2020 was a slow year, owing in part to his affiliation with Burna Boy and the pandemic which ravaged the world, he took on 2021 with a vengeance delivering a scene stealing performance on Ladipoe’s Feeling. Ever since his breakout in 2019, Buju has found himself playing an increasingly crucial role in mainstream Nigerian music.

His early singles, like 2018’s “Catch a Vibe” and 2019’s “Energy”, grew his audience and led to appearances alongside heavy hitters like Zlatan (Spiritual), Wizkid (Mood), and 2021 collaborations with Blaqbonez and Amaarae (Bling), and Savage (“Confident”) helped burnish his run as potentially the hottest feature artiste around.

Though his musical ability was a constant presence in his early years, from singing in school choirs and developing a teenage rap career under the moniker Drizzle, to writing songs while studying IT, the story of this Afro-fusion singer, songwriter and producer, is one of an artiste gradually coming to terms with his own talent. “There was always something there—this talent that people described as beautiful, but I didn’t really understand what it was about, or how I could use it,” he told Apple Music when featured as “Africa Rising” artiste in November 2021.

Buju adds: “So I had to explain the whole journey of me going from not making music, to making it, and building a following off of it. I had written out a poem, and had the line ‘Beauty Under Just Understood’. I tried to look up the acronym, B-U-J-U. I found that it means ‘breadfruits’; it’s also a nickname given to chubby kids.

That time, I was also really hooked on to Jamaican artiste, Buju Banton, who’s a legend. It relates to me as a nickname, and everything.”