Burna Boy and Ray-Ban: What’s Behind the Iconic Partnership
Credit: Ameyaw Debrah under license CC BY-SA 4.0. No changes were made to the image.
In July 2022, Burna Boy, a giant of the African music industry, unveiled his sixth album, Love, Damini, featuring 19 tracks and a global roster of collaborators. Among the standout tracks was Vanilla, a warm release placed towards the end of the album. The accompanying music video provided a vibrant and exciting glimpse into Burna Boy's superstar life.
Notably, what made this visual experience truly unique was Burna Boy's use of Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses. This iconic partnership between Burna Boy and Ray-Ban, with its rich history and context, added a new layer to the music video's creativity and style.
Ray-Ban and the hip hop scene
Love, Damini is easily Burna Boy’s most personal project to date, with the album inviting listeners into his emotionally imperfect inner world. The music video for Vanilla stands out for its colorful montage of first-person points of view, capturing Burna Boy's adventures through his own eyes. This was made possible with Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses.
The sunglasses not only served as a stylistic accessory but also as a tool for storytelling. Vanilla was launched via an innovative use of Instagram Stories, a play on Ray-Ban Stories’ instant social media upload feature. This played a crucial role in enhancing the video's interactive and immersive feel and is one of the top-selling points of the product, which has only been upgraded in its newest generation. Released in 2023 following the commercial success of its predecessor, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses now offers additional hands-free live-streaming capabilities, executed seamlessly through Meta AI. This is still offered in the enduring Wayfarer style, a timeless design that seamlessly blends with Burna Boy's dynamic narrative.
The influence of the Wayfarer and Ray-Ban in the hip-hop scene is not a recent phenomenon. TheWayfarer-esque sunglasses Locshas been an integral part of West Coast hip-hop culture since the days of N.W.A. Thus, Burna Boy's choice to incorporate Ray-Ban Stories inVanillameans that he not only benefits from Ray-Ban’s status as an eyewear giant but also contributes to the ongoing legacy of Ray-Ban in Hip Hop culture. The sunglasses thus become more than just a fashionable accessory — they become a symbol of the intersection between music, style, and technology.
Burna Boy and I Told Them...
Love, Damini became the highest debut of an African album on the Billboard 200 chart, signaling Burna Boy's global impact. Following the release of Vanilla, Burna Boy continued his trajectory towards global dominance.
In June 2023, Sittin' on Top of the World was unveiled, marking the first single from his seventh studio album, I Told Them…. The Troy Roscoe-directed music video shows off a lot of 90s aesthetics, and I Told Them…quickly became Burna Boy's first number-one album on the UK Albums Chart. This further solidified his status as a global music icon.
Thus, as the hip-hop scene continues to evolve, Burna Boy's innovative approach to music videos and partnerships with iconic brands sets the stage for what's to come. Vanilla stands as a testament to the power of combining musical artistry with iconic brands, rewriting the rules of social tool usage while redefining the perceptions of smart glasses category-wide. Meanwhile, Ray-Ban's influential role in shaping the visual narrative of artists like Burna Boy is likely to persist, creating a dynamic fusion of music, fashion, and technology that resonates with audiences globally.