Burna Boy named among Times Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2024

Time Magazine selected African Giant Burna Boy as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2024.

Burna Boy was listed in Times Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2024. Grammy Award winner Angelique Kidjo wrote a stellar tribute to Burna Boy. He stood out as the sole African musician on the shortlist. She described him as a changemaker, admired by thousands of youths who look up to him.

In her tribute, she wrote, "Ten years ago or so, when young African musicians would come to me for advice, I would tell them, “You don’t need to mimic American artists! The world needs the amazing richness and beauty of our traditional African music and our culture. This land is where most of modern music comes from. This source of inspiration is inexhaustible. Its freshness and its elegance will get the world’s attention for sure.

Burna Boy has made that vision a global reality. Inspired by the fantastic drums of Nigerian folk music, and studied in the craft of the great African singer-songwriters, he follows in the footsteps of Fela Kuti—the internationally celebrated Afrobeats artist and activist. Burna Boy’s deeply original flow and his signature groove have conquered the world with an impressive series of firsts: in 2023, he became the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium, and in 2024, he became the first Afrobeats artist to sing at the Grammys. He is history in the making. Now a whole generation of young people from the continent is looking up to him"