The documentary-style video explores the effects of climate change in Port Harcourt, the artist’s hometown.
Burna Boy has released the video for Whiskey, from his 2022 album Love, Damini. The music video tackles the issue of the climate crisis and its effect on Burna Boy’s hometown Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Residents in the area have faced homelessness, health issues and food insecurity due to oil exploration in the region. The documentary aims to spotlight the stories of Port Harcourt locals in a call to action which illuminates the devastating effects of climate change in Nigeria.
The mini-documentary was screened in London last night at which Burna Boy said: “Everything was a lot worse than the way I left it. The air was fully polluted, everything would be black when you wake up, even the cars. It’s really what you see in the documentary. This is real life, everyday life for my people. I feel like we’ll make songs about everything else, so why not make songs about what’s really going on and what’s really affecting the people in real time. That’s what the song Whiskey is. I hope it does its job and creates the necessary awareness and some type of change comes from this. If you don’t know, now you know.”
Speaking about Love, Damini in an Instagram post, he said: “We let the people tell their stories.” The Nigerian artist has incorporated politics into his sounds previously; in our Issue 109 cover story with Burna Boy, he detailed his frustrations with the Nigerian government and called for Nigerians to look to the past to understand the current situation in the country.
“I feel like a lot of my people don’t really understand the situation we’re in right now,” he said. “We must go back to the beginning and understand how we started as a people, Nigerians are the kings of suffering and smiling but everybody is going through their own things. These things are caused by our situations, by the hand we’ve been dealt, and our inability and unwillingness to change it.”
Burna Boy is currently on his Love, Damini tour, which will see him perform at London Stadium in June 2023, making him the first African artist to headline at a UK stadium. Earlier this year, he played the 20,000 capacity Madison Square Garden in New York.
You can watch the video for Whiskey below.