“Wonderful”: A Pan-African Soundtrack to Black Joy

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Burna Boy’s latest single, ‘Wonderful’, is the Pan-African soundtrack to Black joy you didn’t know you needed.

In the wake of the global protests that have arisen in virtually every corner of the world following the tragic killing of George Floyd (and other Black men and women) at the hands of vile and violent expressions of individual and institutional racism, a wave of melancholy has swept over our spirits and placed many of us in a state of despair.

Meanwhile, this seemingly inescapable feeling of despair is only further compounded by the crushing weight of the emotional labor required to make sense of this time of turmoil and tumult—not to the mention the lingering feeling of being “directly confronted with the fact, the enormity, the irreducible sadness of all these deaths” resulting from COVID-19, as poignantly articulated by Teju Cole in his recent essay “We Can’t Comprehend This Much Sorrow”.

We truly can’t comprehend this much sorrow. Our melancholy is nestled in the intersection of several pandemics, and peace of mind, which was already elusive, now seems even more unattainable and somewhat of a luxury.

Deborah Segun. At Peace With Myself (Acrylic on Canvas), 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

Given the sheer amount of learning and unlearning about bias, racism and discrimination that the world is having to contend with during this defining moment in history, it should come as no surprise that Black people—many of whom are bearing the bulk of the burden, personally and professionally, having become educators, mediators and everything in between—feel like, amidst this internal and external work, there’s neither room for nor reason to rest.

This is in part because we have inherited an imperialist understanding of rest; one riddled with guilt and tethered to subjugation. We equate rest with defeat; diametrically opposed to resist. This thinking is a ruse we must not fall for.

At a time when virtually any expression of Blackness is perceived to be a threat and any activity carried out while Black is thought to be criminal or tantamount to a death sentence, any action or inaction that preserves Black life—be it rest, staying informed or finding joy and peace of mind—is an act of resistance. Black joy is an act of resistance.

“Centering on Black joy is not about dismissing or creating an “alternative” Black narrative that ignores the realities of our collective pain; rather, it is about holding the pain and injustice we experience as Black folks around the world in tension with the joy we experience in the pain’s midst. Black joy is healing, resistance and regeneration. The two, joy and pain, are not mutually exclusive, and often we need the latter to get through the former.” — Kleaver Cruz, creator of The Black Joy Project

While this is undoubtedly a moment of reckoning and reconciliation, we must also acknowledge that we cannot resolve hundreds of years of marginalization in days, weeks or months. This is lifelong work that will take years to accomplish. In humanitarian terms, this is a protracted crisis that similarly requires a prolonged response. So while the work never truly stops, we ourselves must—even if only momentarily and as a matter of self-preservation.

No life is devoid of strife and in any place where strife is an inextricable part of life, suffering is inseparable from smiling. Thus, in a world where anti-Blackness is a global pandemic, Black people owe it to themselves to find joy.

Meanwhile, as F. Abiola Irele states in his essay on artistic creation in post-independence Africa in Afro-Optimism: Perspectives on Africa’s advances, “cultural expression must be seen to assume significance: as a way of wresting meaning out of the confrontation with the conditions by which the existence of Africans is bound at this time.”

In Burna Boy’s latest single, Wonderful, which by definition alone speaks to feelings of joy, delight and pleasure, there is indeed a wealth of meaning for us to wrestle with during this time, starting from the song’s opening lines:

Anywhere I go mo n' lati pada si ilé mi
('Cause mama mi won wa ni ilé mi)

The self-proclaimed African Giant’s subtle mix of Pidgin and Yoruba can be loosely translated as “No matter where I go I have to go back home, because my mother is at my home.” It’s no secret to many that Burna Boy’s mother is his manager, and Mama Burna (as she is often affectionately addressed) holds a very special place in her son’s heart.

However, those opening lines belie a deeper meaning hidden in plain sight. By ingeniously alluding to the place he calls home, his motherland, those opening lines speak to a yearning for Black people to return to the motherland; “Somewhere in the land of Warriors, Kings and Queens” as stated in the opening frame of the song’s official video.

This message was echoed by Mama Burna upon accepting his award for Best International Act at the 2019 BET Awards: “Every Black person should please remember that you were Africans before you became anything else.”

In the face of anti-Blackness, as artists and scholars alike make a case for pan-Africanism, Wonderful emerges as an invitation for all people of African descent around the world to unburden ourselves from pain and reclaim our joy:

No disturbance when the gbedu wan catch you

So, the next time you feel the need to rest, let the gbedu catch you, let the vibes catch you, let the joy catch you.