Burna boy’s second release of 2024 is an interesting one. First of all, it confirms my theory that Rema is and has been inspiring the big three for a while, and they’re heavily biting off him now. Bundle by Bundle, an uptempo record with heavy Nigerian street influences is one of the most important records of 2024, even though it’s only just been dropped.
Musically, it’s clearly not Burna’s best work. It sounds like a song that failed to make the Twice as Tall album. There’s signs of Burna’s obvious genius as always, but on a total level he’s not hitting the heights we know him for. The song sounds lazy and doesn’t seem to have a captivating effect on the first couple of listens. Burna flexes his pen game heavily, and his hip hop influences show properly on this record.
It feels like a test run single. One designed to see the reaction of the market, while maintaining demand in the festive period. The chorus doesn’t feel like something that’d sink into your subconscious on first listen, and is the weakest part of the song in my opinion. The verses are heavily packed and properly loaded with heavy writing and confident melodies and the song is generally decent at best.
The most interesting thing about this record is the first thing that caught my attention. The big four have officially brought their sound home with their latest releases. Afrobeats was very present on Wizkid’s Morayo, and we saw a beautiful fusion of his RnB side with his African persona. Davido’s last two releases have been very similar to his releases between 2017 to 2019, and he has already announced to the public that his next album 5ive would be heavily indigenous.
Burna seems to have bitten off this trend and has gone back to his Grammy winning Twice as Tall era. Telz who produced this record also produced a lot of songs on Twice as Tall, such as Wetin dey sup, Wonderful, Onyeka, Real Life and more.
It’s interesting because Rema was the first to intentionally try to bring the sound home with his HEIS album. He was very vocal about it, calling himself a part of a new big four and going on interviews to back his statement. He explained how the entire industry keeps biting off his sound without giving him his flowers or putting him in conversations that he deserves. Now, the big three before him are emulating his actions on his album, with their albums.
On Ozeba he says “I go do my best to make all of una vex, I don comot for my set I don intercept, Shey you wan gatekeep who sabi jump fence” and Bundle By Bundle is proof that he’s actually chilling with the big boys.
The direction of the heavily anticipated “No Sign of Weakness” album scheduled for 2025 is still unknown, but if this release is anything to go by, we just might be having a HEIS moment from Burna. Overall, the record is a good record, but is short of the quality levels Burna set for himself.
