Many people on social media came for Burna Boy after posting some cryptic messages on his social media handle, as a matter of fact, he posted one just a few days before Tiwa Savage got signed to Universal Music Group and his latest one came moment after Mayorkun celebrated 70 million music streams.  A lot of social media users are of the opinion that Burna Boy is hating on the success of Mayorkun, some even went ahead to call him a hypocrite because just some few weeks back he also celebrated 7 million YouTube views but that is not what this article is about, if I have the time, I will find another day to address that issue.

This article is about the post Burna Boy made about feeling sorry for Nigerian artistes who are rushing into signing international deals, saying they might end up be an international victim. He even went ahead to thank his mum for preventing him from making sure mistakes.

I’m not saying this as an insult but it’s just a fact, many of you don’t know jack when it comes to what goes on behind the music scene, aside grooving to their songs and reacting to what they put out on social media, many of you have no idea what exactly is going on behind closed doors. Which is why when someone like Burna Boy who has been enjoying massive international recognition since last year put out a post WARNING other artiste of being careful about international record deals, you should calm down to understand where he is coming from, the least you can do is to ask questions, so that you can get enlightened .

I’m not going to waste too much words on this article because I promise myself I wasn’t going to get involve but then again I realise a lot of you are so ignorant to the fact, which is why it’s easy for you to throw shades and call Burna Boy an overrated artiste or a hater. What Burna Boy said sounds like a bitter truth to many of you because you don’t know or you have chosen to ignore how bad international deals have been to Nigerian artiste, In fact some international deal don ruin some artiste career.

First of let start with the legend himself, 2baba, in 2009, 2baba was the king of Africa and he thought he was ready to take on the world. He went as far as recording an album under Matriarch Records, ready for the international market, this was the period a video of him with Mary J, Blidge working on a song together went viral but till today we never saw the light of that album, years later when he was asked about what went wrong, 2baba being 2baba didn’t give out much info, he only said that things didn’t go according to plan. But let’s even leave that aside because I’m sure not many of you were aware of that, so let me talk about the one many of you are aware of but also ignored.

You all remembered when Davido signed with Sony in 2016 and gave us songs like “Gbagbe Oshi”, “Coolest Kid in Africa” (ft. Nasty C) “How Long” (ft. Tinashe) and finally gave us one of the worst EP I have heard in my life “Son of Mercy”. The problem with these international labels at times, is that when they sign you, they try to change your style to suit the market and if they are not changing your style, they control the kind of music you put out, which if you ask me is still a way of changing your sound. Davido we knew from “Dami Duro” was the pon pon sound kind of singer but during this spell, you could hear him trying so hard to sing like a foreign artiste, doing trap and blues, because that was what the label wanted and that year was very difficult for Davido, in fact his career was going down, until 2017 when he renegotiated his deal with Sony, came back home and did “IF”.

I said I wasn’t going to waste much time, so let end this article by giving this last example of another artiste an international deal almost killed his career, Wizkid. Yes you all heard me right, the Star boy himself, also had a downward slope when he got an international deal in 2016 with Sony, they tried so hard to push Wizkid but it wasn’t just working out for him but the label didn’t really care much because they had invested heavily on him, I mean, he did songs with Drake, Chris Brown, Trey Songs, R.Kelly, TY Dolla $ign, just to mention a few yet Wizkid still couldn’t cut through the international market as they expected. And this was even having a negative effect on his career back home because the kind of songs he made with those people wasn’t the kind of songs his fan over here wanted to hear. So there he was caught up in his dilemma, can’t put out the kind of song your people wanted to hear because the label won’t approve, and the ones you putting out wasn’t making wave like they expect.

Though what help Wizkid was the fact that he found a loop hole in his contract, because part the contract was that Wizkid couldn’t release a song without the permission of the label, so  he made his Star Boy label more functional, that’s why if you notice most songs Wizkid did in 2017, were Star Boy featuring Wizkid. This was why he was able to do songs like “Soco” and “Manya”.

The bottom line of this article is that international deals haven’t really favour any Nigerian artiste which is why like Burna Boy said, Nigerian artiste should be careful before signing one, make them no go become slave to these labels, because there are a lot of things hidden in the contract you won’t know till after you sign it before your eyes go come clear. By the way, international deal dey part of wetin kill D’banj and Don Jazzy Mo’Hits and even Ycee is still trying to revive his own career after his ordeal with Sony too.