I Told Them... Tracklist
I Told Them… is Burna Boy’s seventh full-length studio album following his highly-acclaimed July 2022, Love, Damini. The album marks Burna’s ten-year anniversary in the music industry and serves as an ode to him making it.
The first mention of the album was in June 2023 as Burna became the first African artist to headline an arena tour. Burna reacted to the news of the accomplishment by stating:
I told them that I’m a genius
The album’s lead single, “Sittin' On Top Of The World” with 21 Savage—a remix of his original track—was released on June 23, 2023. This was later followed by the album’s second single, “Talibans II” with Byron Messia—a remix of Byron’s viral, “Talibans”—on July 21, 2023.
Just a week later, on July 27, 2023, Burna officially announced the album alongside the release of the album’s third single, “Big 7,” a melodic tribute to the heights he’s reached in his career.
On August 21, 2023, Burna unveiled the official tracklist, teasing features from Dave, GZA, J. Cole, RZA, and Seyi Vibez. Shortly after this, the album’s final single, the Dave-accompanied “Cheat On Me” was released on August 22, 2023.
The album consists of a heavy Afrobeats sound in combination with Dancehall and generic Trap. The album sees a heavy influence of R&B as the melodic value is increased in comparison to Burna’s previous projects.
“I Told Them...” Q&A
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What is the inspiration behind the album's title?
They say a lot of times that prophets is not really recognizing its own home and shit. So this one is for the part of my own home and the people in my own home who didn’t believe or doubt it, or still doubt, or any type of thing. And not just them, it’s like everyone that ever heard me speak in the past or when I’d first started. You can go back to my old tweets and stuff. I basically predicted everything that’s happening now. So this is basically that. It’s fun to tell people something is true, and they doubt, and then they end up seeing it. There’s no greater feeling.
— Burna Boy, via Apple Music
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What has Burna Boy said about the response the album received?
I’m not going to say I don’t want credit because everyone wants credit for what they do and shit. For me it’s more like I want credit from places where it actually matters. Even though in reality don’t mean nothing but places where you can say why, you can explain and it makes sense to everybody. That’s the type of shit I want. I want to go somewhere where it’s like they see the work and they see everything, the journey and everything, and they’re like, “This is amazing. Yeah, congratulations.” That’s the type of shit that means something. You don’t get that in my country. It means something to the people who are not part of the game in a way. It means something to people who have nothing to gain or lose and no stakes in the matter.
— Burna Boy, via Apple Music
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What is this album about?
It kind of showed me exactly the way I wanted to express what I was feeling and what my unit was feeling. The spirit of my unit. Just put that in because this is every day. This is a side where people don’t really get to see because I don’t really care for anyone to see. I have fun with it like this. But I felt like this time, this is a way… How do I put it? A more understandable way to pass that feeling and that energy across. And at the same time, showing you that’s… Not you. Showing everyone, really, that the combination of worlds is something that we haven’t really capitalized on. Because at the end of the day, once we’re all unified, everything else, the fruits of that just take care of everything.
— Burna Boy, via Apple Music
