The album features guest appearances from Jorja Smith, Jeremih, Damian Marley, Zlatan Ibile, Angelique Kidjo, Serani, M.anifest, YG and Future.

The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who called it cohesive and praised Burna Boy for not diluting his sound.

[1] Burna Boy told Billboard magazine the album is his most personal yet, and would touch upon themes of Nigeria's political climate and violence in the region.

[4] The album's title was derived from Burna Boy's infamous outburst at Coachella's organizers regarding the placement of his name in a small font.

[11] "Dangote", a track recorded in Yoruba, Nigerian pidgin and English, is composed of Fela-jazz horns and African-inflected dancehall; its lyrics stress the importance for ordinary people to hustle.

[18] The dancehall and reggae-infused "Omo" interpolates I Wayne's "Can't Satisfy Her"; the track has been described as "a love letter to his girlfriend Stefflon Don".

[21] In a review for Pan African Music, Wale Owoade praised the song's production and said it "thrives on the harmonious fusion of a static sound of the past with an infectious dance vibe from the present".

[31] Writing for Now newspaper, Sumiko Wilson gave the gig a positive review, praising Burna Boy's performance and saying he had "traces of Fela Kuti's signature electric stage presence".

[31] Aniefiok Ekpoudom of The Guardian gave a five out of five-star review of the concert at the Wembley Arena in London, writing it "has the feeling of a coronation of Nigeria's latest musical king".

[32] On September 10, 2019, Burna Boy released the music video for "Gum Body", a duet with British singer Jorja Smith.

[43] The Prodigeezy-directed music video for "Killin Dem" incorporates clips from a Zubby Michael Nollywood film and features a mixture of Zanku dance styles.

[54][55] The album's eighth single "Secret", a track that features American singer Jeremih and Jamaican dancehall artist Serani, was released on January 24, 2020.

[57] Motolani Alake of Pulse Nigeria assigned a rating of 9.1 out of 10, praising the album's emotive undertone and stating that there is "a uniform sonic approach to all the beats".

[11] Sheldon Pearce of Pitchfork gave the record an 8.3 out of 10 rating, saying it is "more cohesive, more robust in sound, and significantly broader than his previous music".

[62] Kyann-Sian Williams of NME awarded the album four stars out of five, applauding Burna Boy for "using his profile to raise awareness for a better Africa".

[16] Kitty Empire of The Observer rated the album four stars out of five, characterizing it as a continuation of "the singer's boundary-hopping mixture of laid-back Caribbean swagger, Fela Kuti swing and multilingual communiques on a range of concerns".

[13] Also reviewing for The Guardian, Ben Beaumont-Thomas said the album's "retro Afro-pop production can get generic though, when repeated across 19 tracks" and that Burna Boy's "sensual, even rather muted music, may make it hard for him to cut through the noise of western pop culture".

[61] Writing for The Fader magazine, Joey Akan said African Giant is "Nigeria's biggest homegrown effort with a solid measure of local ownership and a narrative that isn't sacrificed or weakened as a prerequisite for global appeal.

[63] The Atlantic writer Hannah Giorgis described African Giant as a "musically diverse and narratively challenging" project that "incorporates a potent emphasis on national record-keeping while maintaining the sultry, atmospheric quality that Burna's early records established".

[27] August Brown of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the album "never dilutes its sound to cater to Anglo audiences, or even to the hip-hop and R&B scenes that are dabbling in Afro-pop right now.

"[64] The Face's Summer Eldemire gave the album four stars out of five, saying it feels "political–like a blueprint of Burna's plan to enable Africans to access their own power and uplift the continent.

"[60] In a review for The Washington Post, Chris Richards stated that on African Giant, Burna Boy's "phrasing always feels fleet, creating a sound that's incredibly dense and impossibly dainty".

[66] In contrast, Bede also notes African Giant "certainly isn't aptly titled to reflect Burna's rightful place alongside the galaxy of music stars (King Sunny Adé, Osita Osadebe) that have emerged from the black continent".