REVIEW: Burna Boy Is Prayerful But Astray On “Higher”

After many listens and reviews online, I attempted reviewing “Higher” by Burna Boy myself. This review is independent of subjectivism, and is critiquing, not criticizing.

At this point in his enviable career, Burna Boy just has to sing; for, for him, no more is the fear to drop a hitless song and be moved on from, a fear gardening the hearts of many an artist and by that frustrating creativity with access to them.

It’s fantastic to be Burna Boy. You sing as you feel like, and people like it because you’re Burna Boy, the Black guy who sold out the London Stadium. Fantastic, right?

Burna Boy’s music is not depreciating, nor is it appreciating. He is lyrically stable as ever, but he is melodically astray as of late.

“Higher” is prayerful and all that. You may say, for a song that well-written and spiritual, melody can be the sacrifice. But that self-coviction, perhaps from a diehard’s point of view, is inadequate to make up for that crucial factor in making hit songs: melody.

Quite shocking to me is that what “Higher” lacks in melody, it got it overly in hype.