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Burna Boy has released a new song that addresses the police brutality perpetrated by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Nigeria.
On ’20 10 20′, the African artist sings: “20th of October 2020 / You carry army go kill many youth for Lekki“, in reference to the protesters killed on that date at Lagos’ Lekki Toll Gate.
As the Associated Press reported on October 21, Nigerian security forces fired on two gatherings of protestors the day before. Amnesty International reported that 12 demonstrators had been killed.
Burna Boy tweeted a few days after the incident, now known as the Lekki Massacre: “I HAVE NOT SLEPT since 20/10/2020. I close my eyes and all I see is Lekki toll gate.
I HAVE NOT SLEPT since 20/10/2020. I close my eyes and all I see is Lekki toll gate. I’ve seen a lot of Violence and death in my Life but this is the one that has Traumatized me.
— Burna Boy (@burnaboy) October 23, 2020
“I’ve seen a lot of Violence and death in my Life but this is the one that has Traumatized me”
The song ends with what sounds like field recordings of unrest, including gunfire.
The singer, rapper and songwriter released his fifth album, ‘Twice As Tall’, in August.
In his Big Read cover interview with NME this summer, Burna Boy spoke about ‘Monsters You Made’ and how he wrote it to fight against systems of oppression.
“There are so many situations where a fight needs to be had. A revolution is needed, and I want to inspire it,” he said. “I’m painting a picture of what we already see every day, but maybe no one has painted the picture in an honest form before. I tried to do that with ‘Monsters.'”
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