BNXN

BNXN

Artist

Daniel Benson, professionally known as Bnxn and previously as Buju, is a Nigerian singer and songwriter who was born on May 14, 1997. In an interview with Complex, Buju came to narrate his early background and artistic path stating:

You know how it is when you get into high school and you’re trying to show your seniors something that makes you stand out. For me at age 11, that special thing was rapping. It was when I got into the university that I realised that a lot of people were rapping way better than I was. I had to ask myself if I was ready to compete in that space or create a niche for myself, so I quit making music until 2017. While on that break, I was doing a lot of listening and that was how I found Burna Boy and J Hus. In 2017, I found SoundCloud and it started showing me a lot of my peers that were doing the exact things I wanted to do. I was like ‘who are these guys who are just like me and building their communities?’. I wanted that. They were the alté crew; the likes of Odunsi, Santi, Lady Donli et al and like them, I was trying to spark a change. So I started singing my rap lines.

On October 28, 2021, Buju published his much-anticipated extended play, Sorry I’m Late, in front of a much larger audience, a tremendous body of work that saw him infuse new sounds and style into his songs as he shaped his voice around highlife inspirations. This performance opened doors for Buju, leading to the publication of numerous singles and collaborative tracks with well-known artists like Wizkid on “Mood.”

He, later on, dropped his second extended play, Bad Since ‘97 on August 25, 2022, another masterpiece that saw him reflect on many themes ranging from love to his newly acknowledged standing in the Afrobeats scene:

Well, the main message behind the album was to show my ascension from just being a regular musician, someone who was trying to find his way or find his sound, to finally finding my spot and my standing. Bad Since ‘97 is exactly that: I’ve been bad since I was born.