The BET Award for Best International Act is an award given to honour the outstanding achievements of international artists from around the world every year.
This award is not to be confused with the “BET Award for Best International Act: Africa” which was an award given to honor the outstanding achievements of international artists from Africa every year before being combined with other BET Award international acts.
It was a category that was introduced to the BET Awards in 2018 and the inaugural winner was Davido, who won the award off his perfect year run in 2017.
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Davido had three monster hits spread across the year. “If” ruled for the first quarter of the year, “Fall” held it down from summer to the fall of the year and “Fia” was the big detty December jam.
The first two of those three hits also crossed over to be international hits. His last single of the year “Like Dat” though it wasn’t as massive as the rest, held its own as a big fan favourite among music lovers who agreed that the timing of the song hindered its potential as his own song “Fia” was so massive that it overshadowed it.
Davido’s run of singles in that year is still the best ever from a single year in review, it also doubles as my personal favourite.
Since then Burna Boy has dominated the category by winning it three times back to back to back.
In 2019, he beat fellow Nigerian singer Mr Eazi, UK rappers Dave and Giggs, AKA from South Africa among others based on the amazing 2018 that he had.
Burna Boy stepped into a different level of recognition and acceptance from the release of “Heaven’s Gate“. The success of his third studio album “Outside” which produced the monster hit “Ye“. Ye wasn’t just a hit it was one of, if not the most defining song of the year.
This era earned Burna Boy both the Artist of the year and Song of the year at The Headies.
2018 turned out to be Burna Boy‘s biggest year in his career at the time.
In 2020, he beat UK rappers Stormzy and Dave, Sho Madjozi from South Africa among others.
He earned this award with the release of “Killin dem” featuring Nigerian rapper Zlatan in January 2019. The song remained a hit all through the year and was the poster song for the Zanku dance which was the popular dance at the time. “Dangote” and “Anybody” was the follow-up singles and he struck gold with the two singles as well.
The release of his fourth studio album “African Giant“ in July 2019 was widely received by music lovers and it became his most successful album till date.
The album produced 5 hits (Gbona, On the low, Killin dem, Anybody, Dangote) and earned him a Grammy nomination where he fell short of winning.
This was the year Burna Boy‘s international recognition hit its peak as the biggest moment of his international crossover was the feature on Stormzy‘s “Own It” a number one song in the UK Top 40 chart which also featured British singer Ed Sheeran.
2019 turned out to be the biggest year in his career at the time.
This year, he beat fellow Nigerian singer Wizkid, UK rapper Headie One, Diamond Platnumz from Tanzania among others.
2020 eclipsed 2019 and turned out to be the biggest year in his career as he picked himself up from the disappointment of losing at The Grammys and titled his fifth studio album “Twice As Tall” and was more intentional with the rollout of his album.
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His efforts finally paid off as he once again got a Grammy nomination, becoming the first Nigerian artist to earn back to back Grammy nominations. This time he beat the final hurdle and won the award. Making history in the process as a Nigerian Afropop artist.
The album “Twice As Tall” also hit number one on Billboard’s World Album chart. The first Nigerian album to do so.
He kicked off this year with his most recent single “Kilometre” which became an instant hit, gathering streams and massive airplay.
He recently teamed up with DJ Tarico, a South African DJ for the remix of the track “Yaba Buluku” it is an amapiano themed song that contains a lyric in form of a chant singing Burna Boy‘s praises “Odogwu you bad! Efile fun Burna!” That lyric has turned out to be a fan favourite in the song which is strategically placed to be a crossover hit in the Nigerian music scene.
He announced that his sixth studio album will be released later this year, so it is still left to be seen if his 2021 will be anywhere as good as the tremendous 2020 that he had.
Love him or hate him for his controversial personality, nobody is currently doing it better than Burna Boy.
