With “Captain” BNXN Makes His Claim To The Throne

A running theme throughout BNXN’s career is that he has always been described as underrated; the guy whose mythology pales compared to his talent; an artist who could be so much more. In 2020, he vaulted to public renown with the remix of Lenu, a syrupy pop number which features Burna Boy. In the video BNXN, who at the time went by Buju, is wide-eyed and ebullient, flanked by a phalanx of girls. Wearing a varsity jacket, he plays the role of a cool high school student, a trope with much cachet in the Nigerian music scene, having been deployed by stalwarts like Wizkid. Burna Boy, on the other hand, plays the role of the swashbuckling older brother. He arrives at the school in a gleaming red sports car, wearing a red jacket and matching red glasses, to pick up BNXN, whose peers are gobsmacked by the sight. The video seemed to be a metaphor for BNXN’s ascendancy as Burna Boy’s prodigy. Not only had Burna Boy co-signed him, he had also signed BNXN to his Spaceship label, positioning him as heir apparent to his throne. 

As the months rolled by, the excitement Lenu remix evoked would start to peter out. BNXN was still dropping good music, but projections of him as Burna Boy’s successor had begun to feel far-fetched. Doubts about his artistry would intensify when in 2021, BurnaBoy released a tweet expressing his desire for a worthy successor. “I dey pray for just one young nigga wey get my spirit make I hand over give am. I know say God go lead me to am soon.” Soon after the tweet, trolls began to viciously taunt BNXN. The trolling would take on added force when BurnaBoy started openly doting on Rema, who was already seen by many as the leader of his generation, by way of tweets and real-life interactions. It’s telling that Rema and Omah Lay performed later that year at BurnaBoy’s feted O2 Arena show, while BNXN, his putative acolyte, was notably absent. 

2022 would however signal a reversal in fortune for BNXN. He embarked on a blistering feature campaign that spawned incredible songs like Blaqbonez’ Bling, Wizkid’s Mood, and Ladipoe’s Feeling, amongst others. But with his success came newer problems. That his most fruitful efforts seemed to come through features became an intense talking point, trolls would skewer him for always being “carried,” even well-meaning fans expressed concern over the situation. In 2022, when BNXN and Ruger were embroiled in a beef, which was mostly prosecuted through a blitz of tweets exchanged between the duo, Ruger’s line of attack was effectively that BNXN lacked solo hits. 

A lot has changed since then, the pair reconciled and even made a joint EP titled RnB, but BNXN is still generally seen as operating below his maximum potential, as an article by Culture Custodian’s Patrick Ezema holds. He’s keenly aware of this perception, and Captain, his sophomore album, appears to be an attempt at flattening them. “The album itself represents growth. It shows that I’m skilled and I’m a crucial player in this field,” he said in an interview with RollingStone’s Mankaprr Conteh. “In the ocean of the industry, I’m a rocking ship and I’m in total control of it. In good storms and bad storms, I’m still in charge.”  

The album opens with I Alone. A lighter clicks timorously, he takes a deep puff and exhales before segueing into lyrics in which he alternates between a gnawing desire for more wealth, emotion-sodden lines about heartbreak, and a pervading sense of loneliness. The next track however finds him more upbeat. The production is sinuous and brooding, but the lyrics find him railing against enemies, singing about money, and taunting an ex-lover. This motif threads through the project: he nimbly bounces between introspection and insouciance. 

BNXN flirts with Sexy Drill, a nascent variant of Drill being heralded by New York City singer-producer Cash Cobain. I Alone, the opening track, brilliantly blends the sultry rhythms of Afro-Adura with the Sexy Drill’s distinctive bounce and the result is pure catharsis. On Cutesy, he taps Sexy Drill once again, but this time it’s unmediated by Afrobeats, or any of its substrates; the only trace of Afrobeats is his delivery and his use of pidgin and Yoruba. These moments of subtle experimentation introduce a measure of aural freshness to the project but they’re not nearly enough: the vast majority of the album finds him reprising the hackneyed melodies and flows. 

Songs like Cutesy, Fi Kan We Kan (which features Rema), and Jies, which find him jauntily carefree, almost mischievous, are beyond delightful. But the more introspective tracks find him at his finest form, which is hardly surprising given that his biggest strength is his pen. In the titular Captain, over a beat that sounds like a pensive night of drinking and profound introspection, he offers lyrics that run the gamut from existentialism to his desire for more money. Similarly in the Fola-assisted Very Soon, I Alone, and In Jesus Name—moments when he turns inwards—he’s especially compelling. 

This ironically, is what blights the album the most. There’s a painful paucity of moments like these, moments when he is actually saying anything noteworthy. For an artist who built his reputation on constantly having riveting anecdotes to share and  incredible songwriting skills to artfully communicate these stories and musings, this almost feels like a crisis. It also doesn’t help that despite allusions of a desire for ascendancy and invocations of nautical motifs, the album lacks any discernible thematic anchor. It’s at best a collection of languid songs for a breezy evening at the beach, which might be a good enough offering for some, not for the guy positioning himself as a cultural touchpoint in Afrobeats’ current order.