From Jay-Z’s tough-love speech towards the Recording Academy, to South Africa’s Tyla Laura Seethal stealthily edging Nigerian stars Davido, Burna Boy, Ayra Star and Asake in the first ever Best African Music Performance category, the 66th Grammy Awards were everything but insipid.
The coveted awards, hosted by comedian Trevor Noah, were held on February 5, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California.
Beginning with Tyla’s astounding win, despite Burna Boy, Asake, Ayra Star and Davido having an incredibly good musical year, the Academy thought otherwise, when it came to awarding the Best African music performance.
While her song Water, did quite well in 2023, hitting over 380 million streams on Spotify, and 118 millions views on YouTube, it would be rather far-fetched for one to imagine that the same record would beat Davido’s Unavailable or even Ayra Star’s Rush.
However, even though charts are usually the least considered yardstick for which artist/song/album did better, it is inevitable to talk about Tyla’s performance on the charts, because according to the Recording Academy’s website, upon the night of the awards, it was everything in how her song was welcomed globally.
Since 1968, when deceased trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, made it to the Billboard Hot 100, South Africa had not featured again, until last year when 22-year-old Tyla broke the deadlock with Water. The fairy-tale story for the youngster got even sweeter when she made No.7 on the chart, making her the highest charting African female solo musician in Billboard history. Needless to mention, the song also went on to hit No.1 Billboard U.S Afrobeats Songs and HipHop/RnB charts.
Now, if you have followed the Grammys for a significant while, especially for categories curated for artists outside of the United States, a record/song/album needs to have made a thick mark on the American music scene (charts, Television) for it to stand a chance of influencing the Academy voters, and rightly so, Tyla’s Water ticked this box.
Could this remarkable milestone have been too overwhelming for the Academy voters to ignore? Grammy.com reporter Douglas Markowitz seems to nod in agreement, in his article published on February 5.
Additionally, the almost unbelievable chartings for Tyla remind us of Ugandan musician, Tshaka Mayanja’s definition of what a hit song actually is.
Back to Tyla’s Grammy and what could be the magic behind how she kept Nigerian stars at bay, this year. She was placed in a newly created category, which according Academy President, Harvey Mason Jr, was meant to recognise and honour more music from Africa and the rest of the world.
“The future of the Recording Academy is going to build on equity, honouring not just music entering our country, but music from around the world,” Mason Jr. said in an interview with Grammy.com
While Water is regarded as an Amapiano song, it is largely a pop song, the type of sound that would easily resonate with Western audiences; American pop culture, so to speak.
Some critics have, therefore, argued that Davido’s Unavailable, Burna Boy’s City Boys and Ayra Star’s Rush, all of which are highly categorized as Afrobeats songs, a genre that is yet to sit in right with the American audience, and particularly, with the Recording Academy, the songs were in for a bumpy ride.
Besides, the Recording Academy stipulates, as one of the criteria, the Technical Proficiency of the artist. Afrobeats being an emerging genre outside Africa, perhaps its technical proficiency is yet to be understood and appreciated by the global audience and the Academy in particular.
As Tyla and her team revelled in the glory of their Grammy win, fans of the other African stars in the same category, especially those of Davido, spent the better part of day (February 6), holding forth, in light of what many have deemed unfair to their artists.
Unlike them, however, Davido, just like Ayra Star, has already congratulated Tyla, saying: “Congratulations Tyla! Big one for Africa. Keep souring”
While Burna Boy and Davido might have lost all three of their nominations, the former had an enthralling night, putting up a grandstanding performance for the audience.
Best African Music Performance: A category for Africa or just part of Africa?
If Recording Academy President Harvey Mason’s words are anything to go by, then there is quite a bunch of questions to be raised, some of which have already been raised. First off, one may want to ponder at why a category meant to honour music from across the continent only had two countries represented; Nigeria and South Africa, the fact that some of the nominees were already nominated in other categories notwithstanding
In fact, all the songs nominated in this category either have their lyrics in the English language or largely written in English – something that speaks less to an African musical agenda. From a culturally diverse African continent that boosts of over 2000 languages, the category only nominated two genres – Afrobeats and Amapiano, a recently popularised style from South African house music.
“African music is not one style. Different countries contribute different things. The Grammy voters need to cast their net wider” said Emanyeo “Jagari” Chanda, 72, to National Public Radio, in an interview on February 4, 2024
MC Yallah, Ugandan rapper born in Kenya, believes “Africa has a lot of great talent that is being ignored and not getting the deserved recognition” she told npr.org
Speaking of Burna Boy, he is a great artist and his fame can not be wished away. However, he represents only a part of Africa – the west – not the whole of Africa
One can, however, choose to be optimistic and hope that in the near future, more African talents will make the cut, but then again, the thought that only three new African countries (Ghana, Malawi and Niger) have got Grammy nominations, since 2008, crashes any hopes that might exist.
Jay-Z’s tough-love speech to the Academy
Speaking about unfair, American rapper, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, delivered quite the speech when he dared to call out the Academy for things it has consistently failed to get right over the years.
While accepting his Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, Jay-Z reminisced about the 1998 Grammys where he was nominated for Best Rap Album, but went ahead to boycott the awards because he felt like the late DMX, who had released two incredibly good album in the same year, deserved a nomination, too.
He went on to rub it in with the example of how Beyonce, also his wife, has repeatedly missed out on Album of the Year award, despite having the highest number of Grammys ever. “I don’t want to embarrass this young lady [Beyonce], but she has more Grammys than everyone, and never won Album of the Year. So, you see, even by your own matrix, it doesn’t work”. Said Jay-Z
He expressed his wish for the Academy to at least try and get things close to right.
With tongue-in-cheek statements, Jay-Z closed by intimating that “some of you may go home feeling like you got robbed, some of you don’t even belong in that category, but outside of that and the Grammys at large, you just have to keep showing up in everything that you do, until they call you a genius”.
