Daniel Benson, popularly known as Buju, is an Afro-fusion singer, songwriter, and former signee of Burnaboy’s Starship Records, known best for hit songs like “Mood” and “Feeling.” He took to his Twitter account in the late hours of yesterday to announce that he was changing his stage name.
In the tweet he posted, the artiste gave no reason for the name change, but a video snippet underneath the tweet signalled that it may have resulted from the fact that there is a Jamaican Reggae dancehall artiste that goes by the stage name Buju Banton.
Buju stated that he was changing his name to Benson, which would be stylised as BNXN. Whatever his reasons for the change, many of his fans have refused to accept it. Most of them declared their allegiance to the ‘Buju’that released the hit single ‘Lenu,’ which was later remixed by Burnaboy, marking the start of the singer’s rise to stardom.
Over the years, many musicians both in Nigeria and abroad have come out to declare a name change, but with every announcement, it is evident that the fans of these artistes never appreciate the change and find it extremely hard to get used to the new moniker even after many years have passed.
Perhaps this reluctance is borne out of nostalgia rather than the usual Nigerian stubbornness as these artistes became endeared to their fans during the first few years of their careers when all they had were their names and a handful of loyal fans.
Wizkid’s change to Big Wiz, Kiss Daniel to Kizz Daniel, and Tuface’s to 2Baba give us a glimpse of how opposed to celebrity name changes Nigerians are. All these artistes are still primarily referred to by the names they bore when they first walked into the spotlight. We can only hope that BNXN doesn’t experience the same fate.