Five Takeaways From Burna Boy’s Latest Album, ‘No Sign of Weakness’

Depending on who you ask, the nuances of this celebrity lifestyle have influenced Burna Boy positively or otherwise. On the one hand, we hear an artist who is leaning more into the intricacies of live performances, interpreting his songs as the documents of shared living that they have become. Alternatively, several critics have bemoaned a thinning sense of intimacy from the music, as it seems Burna Boy has gradually found himself in a space where he has to become much more than we ever needed him to be. Though not bad albums of their own,Love, Damini, andI Told Them didn’t get the overwhelming critical appreciation of the projects before them, stoking concerns on the home front that Burna Boy needed to strike undeniable sonic gold on No Signs of Weakness.

It’s his eighth studio album, a remarkable number for any artist, especially an artist who’s been touring the world for years. With pre-album singles like “Update” and “Sweet Love” moving between the archetypical Afrobeats vibes and roots reggae, there hasn’t been a strong-enough indicator the sounds Burna Boy intends to center on No Sign of Weakness, which makes it one even more excited, if not slightly anxious, about the music he’ll be presenting on here.

Burna Boy Still Loves The Big Moments

How an artist opens and closes their album reveals a great deal about their personality. Burna Boy has never shied away from these big moments, using their natural importance to make grand statements about his music and current station in life. On NSOW, he uses the scathing, blistering opener “No Panic” to address his critics, even threatening violence if they continue annoying him. Referencing his famous Timberland boots, he sounds every bit the part, with the urgent production amplifying the mood, giving a faint idea of what the album would likely sound like. By the end, though, the listener is in a different place, now sailing calmer seas, with “Born Winner” proving quite the aspirational bop. With its melancholic backnotes and Burna’s evocative singing, it’s an atmospheric success that, paired with the opener, sees the artist deliver on these key moments.

The Songwriting Craves Intimacy, But Does It Succeed?

Burna Boy’s musical education was influenced by a variety of genres, primarily including hip-hop, reggae, and Afrobeat. These are all Black forms, and he synthesizes their best qualities into his long-maintained Afro-fusion style, an alignment that’s usually given his songwriting a high level of creative possibilities. On this album, we hear the artist reaching for those levels, but where they once came with unique manifestations, there is quite a cliché of forms here. The titular track makes yet another reference to a gun; elsewhere, he dips into his infamous car crash, but rather than the emotive expression on “Last Last,” here it’s because he was looking back at a woman’s butt. Even when he makes the earnest desire to shield a lover’s “heart from danger,” there isn’t enough specificity to make these affirmations stand out. It’s like a man saying the same things he’s said before, only in less strong terms. Quite frankly, there aren’t many lyrics on NSOW that make you pause or rewind in contemplation or even revelry.

Versatility as a Core Element of the Production

Most of Burna Boy’s albums have tended to incorporate a wide range of sounds. Versatility is a skill the artist prizes, but it’s always been executed with an eye on progression and purpose. From On a Spaceship to Twice As Tall, the artist would use his themes and out-of-song elements like skits and voiceovers to stitch the overall narrative. Where NSOW fancies that same range in sounds, there are audible flaws in the execution. We hear this especially on the banger tracks, which are preceded or followed by mellow records. Coming just after the vulnerable showcase of “Love,” the Travis Scott-assisted “TaTaTa” sounds out of place. It could have been a late-album thriller. The same thing happens with “Dem Dey,” whose progression into “Sweet Love” offers a total contrast of tonal sensibilities. At the album’s final section, “Bundle By Bundle” and “Change Your Mind” also suffer from a similar pacing issue, although it must be said that these are not bad songs on their own. The issue, instead, is cohesion, and with little narrative material to move the listener from track to track, they come across as random tracks jumbled together.

Burna Boy Shines When He Loves

In a project that craves purposeful indulgence for the most part, Burna Boy shines when he loves. Right from early classics like “Smoke” and “Tonight,” we’ve seen an artist adept in the language of the self — he knows how to relate what he wants out of life, arguably better than the bubbling external, which accounts for the world of opinions and perception, which has been his preoccupation in recent years. Indeed, the best moments on NSOW come on records like “Love” and “Born Winner,” where he gracefully slips off the silky material of celebrity. Along with “Buy You Life” and “Change Your Mind,” there’s a different vibration when the artist is swept along by the tides of a larger purpose, and not necessarily in a sociopolitical context. On such songs, he brings his powerful vocals to the fore, understanding that it’s not so much what, but how, that makes such messages stand the test of time. It’s pretty ironic that for all the machismo and toughness he projects on the album — and even through its title — it is these songs that touch more poignantly on the matter of the human condition.

Burna Boy Needs To Surrender Some Creative Freedom

One thing is clear: Burna Boy hasn’t lost those characteristics that make him an intriguing global artist. His vocals remain as pristine as ever, and in inspired moments, he’s able to come up with verses that will leave anyone awestruck. What instead seems to be the case is the process that influences the music-making, that which insiders call creative freedom. By all indications, he has become creatively stunted, and this is evident in the narrowing of his themes and perspective. In essence, what is No Sign of Weakness about? Going by the title, does it offer an intriguing and defined perspective of one of Africa’s musical trailblazers, or is it a rehashing of the themes he’s expressed elsewhere, and better?

The lack of a unifying narrative suggests that the artist has thrown all his signature tricks into the blank page, but there’s no great editor to cut out the fluff. Perhaps this comes as a result of being often on the road, creating music from different sources and inspirations. However, for an artist with an inherent range like Burna, discipline is needed, even more so than exuberance. Surrendering some creative freedom would help him regain the focus his art requires. Whether it’s locking in with one producer or collaborating more robustly with other African artists, there’s a gaping hole in NSOW that craves the touch of home. A touch more intense than what we have here.