Source: Gallo Images / Getty
You’d think after Coachella announced their line-up, people would get excited for the festival and that would be the end of it.
However, folks are putting their zoom-in feature to good use with criticism of the festival’s fine print.
First, there was a whole Gucci Mane fiasco where instead of printing “Gucci Mane” as a performer, Coachella billed him as “Gucci Gang.” However, Coachella came through with the quick save and later changed their artist site to show Gucci would be performing with Lil Pump and Smokepurpp as the “Gucci Gang.”
Nice one Coachella.
But this didn’t stop other people from beefing with the music festival…more specifically a not-so-happy music artist.
Nigerian afrobeat star Burna Boy couldn’t help but notice that his name was smaller in the billing than say…the headliners of the show. Peep his name below, three rows down from Ariana Grande.
Burna Boy was so annoyed with his placement that he made a post about it on Insta-stories. “I am an AFRICAN GIANT and will not be reduced to whatever that tiny writing means,” he said.
Ironically, the afrobeat artist Mr. Eazi, who’s just as big as Burna Boy, also received the same-sized text and complaints from him were nowhere to be found.
The Internet was quick to clown Burna Boy over his print outrage.
https://twitter.com/Sandymonajj/status/1080769448464826369
https://twitter.com/iamswitchme/status/1080830980045369345
https://twitter.com/ooe_91/status/1080807852032307201
Some people pointed out that there was a disconnect between Americans and Africans over music taste. While afrobeat artists are booming in places like Nigeria and Ghana, they have yet to make a large-scale impact on American audiences.
“Burna boy. No notable award to his name.. No Billboard appearance. No BET nomination.. Just one breakthrough year and he gets picked for coachella for the first time in his life and this ni**a thinks he’s Drake,” Twitter user @OlaTheOG said. “You want your name in caps like Ariana that has 141m followers on IG.”
https://twitter.com/OlaTheOG/status/1080804181798256640
Many people followed up on the Ariana Grande comparison, saying Burna Boy hasn’t reached the same pop status as the “Thank U, Next” singer, so his billing font might be a tad smaller.
https://twitter.com/ObongRoviel/status/1080812933620342791
Then, of course, there were people who were just plain petty…
https://twitter.com/_valkiing/status/1080841403423428610
https://twitter.com/ani_nomso/status/1080793032126025729
Eventually, Burna Boy responded to the backlash with another Insta-story post, writing:
“AFRICAN creatives going Global. Not the soft, Low self esteem Africans with the slave mentality. I will grant an interview soon to make myself understood. Nothing say comes from any place of ‘pride’ or any sense of ‘entitlement,’ it comes from my Vision of the future of AFRICA not just AFRICAN Music.”
What do you think?
Should Coachella put more respect on Burna’s name or does Burna’s font outrage still go under the petty files?
One thing is for certain.
People will be expecting a headline-worthy performance from him come April.
Twitter Has Pettiest Reactions When This Afrobeat Star Complains About His Coachella Billing was originally published on globalgrind.com
