The 66th Grammy Awards were held this past Sunday and featured the inaugural “Best African Music Performance” award. This category was a part of the Recording Academy’s push to “acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists” while also “exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide." The award is not limited to Afrobeats, rather celebrates music that uses “unique local expressions from across the African continent.”
Mariam Makeba was the first African artist to win a Grammy Award and fifty-nine years later her fellow South African, Tyla, became the first African artist to win the Grammy’s inaugural “Best African Music Performance” award for her track “Water.” This record has over 382 million streams on Spotify alone, it peaked at number 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100 received multiple plaques from global sales platinum, 3x platinum in South Africa, certified gold platinum in over 18 countries, 1 billion views on TikTok, number 1 U.S. Afrobeats song, and number 1 on Urban and Rhythm radio.
I know there will be some people who say that the other nominees were robbed, but the numbers just don’t lie. Tyla had the biggest record out of all her counterparts. Beyond that, she had an incredible team behind her headed by the likes of Colin Gayle, Yvette Davis Gayle, and Joel Rao who are some of the co-founders of Africa Creative Agency. These individuals are titans within the global music industry, with resumes spanning across continents, Interscope, Essence, The Recording Academy and more.
“Water” was a record bound for global attraction as it incorporated cross-genre musical elements from Amapiano, Pop, and RnB. The strategy here was to create an Amapiano (South African genre that has taken over the African music industry) track, that still gave a nod to the western market with the inclusion of RnB and Pop tones. Some of the record’s writers are Grammy winning songwriters Ari PenSmith, Sammy Soso and Tricky Stewart who have all written for the biggest names in the industry from Beyoncé, Wizkid, Rihanna, Justin Beiber and more.
The Afrobeats genre has played a huge part in placing African music on global platforms like the Grammy. This Nigerian music category has given birth to some of the biggest African stars of our time. Afrobeats has grown by 550% in streams alone with Rema’s “Calm Down (Remix)” with Selena Gomez becoming the first African track to reach Spotify’s billion stream club. CKay’s “Love Nwantiti” has more than 810 million streams on Spotify. Ayra Starr’s “Rush” has over 322 million streams on Spotify.
Nigerian artists continue to sell out stadiums and arenas like it is nobody’s business, from venues like the Madison Square Garden, 02 Arena, London Stadium, Citi Field and more. We have seen them also perform on the world’s biggest stages from the Grammys, The Champions League Final, and BET Awards just to name a few. Since 2017, Nigerian artists have claimed three Grammy Awards (not including Sikiru Adepoju’s win in 2009) while receiving over 20 nominations.
This year’s Grammy Awards gave Nigerian artists nine nominations. The nominated artists were Davido (featuring South African, Musa Keys), Ayra Starr, Burna Boy, Asake & Olamide. Out of the five tracks that were nominated under “Best African Music Performance,” three of them featured Amapiano elements even though the majority of artists came from Nigeria. This is not so surprising, as current popular Nigerian music tends to incorporate a fusion of Fuji, Highlife, Afrobeats and Amapiano. Burna Boy made history by becoming the first African artist to perform during the Grammys primetime show. All of these accomplishments speak to how integral Nigeria’s success has been to the rest of the African music industry.
Though Nigerians were well represented in terms of nominations, they walked off the Grammy stage with no wins. A lot of us expected Nigerian artists to end the night with at least two wins, being that they were nominated across various categories in pretty decent numbers. Davido is one artist that I for sure thought was going to win at least one Grammy, as he arguably released the best African album of 2023 and was nominated under three categories. What these results tell us is that the Nigerian music industry needs to improve their Grammy advocacy tactics going forward, this includes the people speaking on behalf of the artists behind closed doors, media campaigns/tours, and much more targeted promotional investments.
The Grammys move to include a category for African music shows how far we have come and still have to go. It shows that the world is paying attention. The world is awakening to our music form. And the world is starting to take a keen interest in understanding how we express ourselves through creativity. They had no choice but to pay attention to African music, because not doing so would amount to committing artistic malpractice. Especially due to the breath of diversity within the sounds the continent has to offer.
In West Africa, you will be inundated with sounds from Mbalax of Senegal, and unlock your waist to Coupe de cale of Ivory Coast and become a leg warrior to Afrobeats of Nigeria. As you move to the central part, you will move your waist to Kizomba of Angola, and perfect your waistline to Rumba and Ndombolo of the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as to the Makossa of Cameroon.
In Southern Africa you will dance to Amapiano, Afrohouse and the Kwaito sounds of South Africa and commence to the Marrabenta genre of Mozambique. On your way up to Eastern Africa, you will smell the flavors of Pilau as your body consumes the beats of BongoFlava and Singeli from Tanzania, then the Kenyans will draw you into the streets of Nairobi to dance to Gengetone, while the Ethiopians will have you sipping coffee to their acclaimed jazz music. As you end your journey across the Sahel, Marrakesh and Cairo, you will take in the diverse sounds of Arabic, Chaabi and Berber music.
As we bask in this moment of African music being celebrated globally, we must find ways to highlight the diverse music culture of the continent. Nigerians have helped to create a platform that other African nations can use to propel their own music genres. In the meantime, we can celebrate up and coming African artists like Abigail Chams of Tanzania, Kinoti and Nikita Kering’ of Kenya, Khanyisa of South Africa, Joshua Baraka of Uganda, Jungeli of Democratic Republic of Congo (France-based), and Shallipopi of Nigeria to name a few.
As a person born in Tanzania, I look at this moment as a time for artists from my nation of birth to step up their game. Our country is the music powerhouse of East Africa, but it is not in the proper shape to compete with Nigeria or South Africa. Various factors play into that reality, Tanzanians predominantly speak Swahili unlike their counterparts who have local dialects that are mixed in with English. We do not have the level of global music infrastructure (connections, investments and expertise) as our counterparts. Out of the two dominant genres we have, BongoFlava and Singeli, one has no real prospects of crossing over to the global market while the other needs tweaking in order to be more palatable for foreign audiences.
Singeli, a sound born out of the streets of Dar es Salaam from the Zaramo people, is what I believe to be Tanzania's future ticket to the international market. The genre is an offshoot of Taarab (a Swahili genre infused with Arabic influences), featuring a fast tempo beat with a call and response singing pattern. Unlike Bongoflava, Singeli has a stronger hype vibe to it and translates really well into DJ culture. If the brightest producers in Tanzania come together to repackage and tweak Singeli for international market viability, when I write another Grammys related article in three to five years this genre will be a major part of that discussion.
Other African countries can learn a few things from their Nigerian and South African counterparts. The first thing is to develop/evolve a music genre that infuses local traditional sounds with elements of popular global music forms, making the sound viable for both domestic and foreign markets. Second, bolster the domestic music infrastructure to give artists the right support system in all things media, brand partnerships, and opportunities to showcase their art. Third, build effective and durable connections with teams, media, and partners with deep-seated sway within the global music infrastructure. These three steps define what Nigeria and South Africa did to get their music industry to where it is today.
I leave African artists with the following message.
Our music creates memories and helps to define our lived experiences as children of the continent. The creative ingenuity of our artists opens up new imaginations of the past, present and future way of existing as an African in this world.
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