Did the Grammy Awards use Nigerian music giants to gain popularity among Africans?

The African continent rejoiced at the significant improvement in global recognition of its music and creative arts. Many eagerly anticipated the annual prestigious event that brings together the finest talents in the music industry.

Fans, pundits, and critics alike eagerly awaited to see which African artist would win awards at the 66th Grammy Awards ceremony, held at the Crypto.com Arena in California, USA.

The facts

With the Grammys now over and some fans left disappointed, many have taken to social media, saying that the event’s executives rode on the popularity of these African artists to hype the show.

As was the case last year, many were optimistic that more than one African artist would win an award at the Grammys. Unfortunately, only South African musician Tyla emerged as the winner in her category, beating out other contenders.

Nigerians, in particular, expressed their disappointment on various social media platforms the next day, describing the Grammys as a sham.

Five Nigerian artists—Asake, Ayra Star, Burna Boy, and Davido—were nominated in various categories at the highly anticipated event. This year’s awards ceremony was held with the artists in attendance.

The arguments

This year’s Grammys were highly anticipated by Africans, especially because of the nominations of African artists in multiple categories. To the people of the continent, this meant that Afrobeats, Amapiano, and other genres were gradually gaining momentum.

The countdown to the day was filled with activities, including an artists’ brunch held in Los Angeles a few days before the main event. The Recording Academy and Guba Enterprise collaborated to host the African Nominees Brunch for the second time, which took place before the Grammy Awards. Nominees and other creatives gathered to socialize and provide support.

In the first edition in 2023, Chief Executive Officer Harvey Mason Jr., in an interview with Ghanaian broadcaster Berla Mundi, expressed his excitement about highlighting the works of more Africans in the music awards show.

Mason and his team expressed interest in spreading their wings to the continent.

“There is such importance in African music. There’s so much creativity in art coming from Africa. There are even many nominees this year in African music. So, we want to make sure we honor them, and we also want to communicate and listen to the African community so we can see, as an academy and as a music industry, what we can do better. How can we serve African music and African music creators as well as music creators all around the world? But today, it’s about African music creators.”

He said he loved African music and disclosed that he co-wrote some lyrics of trending songs.

“There’s so much incredible music coming out of Africa, and I’m really excited about the future of music from that region. The creativity, the new, the fresh…it’s amazing,” he told Berla Mundi.

But UK-based Nigerian radio and TV personality, Adesope Olajide, seems to think otherwise. He went on Instagram Live expressing his disapproval of this year’s near ‘no show’ for Nigerian artists, especially. He claimed Africans and their musical traditions are not the focus of the Grammy Awards.

Given that South Africa’s Tyla beat out Davido and Burna Boy, the two most nominated African acts this year, to win the newly created Best African Music Performance award, the Afrobeats promoter implied that the Grammys were out of touch with African pop music and even up to something sinister.

He argued that a great opportunity to bring together African peers and Americans of African heritage residing overseas was tragically missed.

According to him, organizers of the Grammys ‘used and dumped’ Davido to reach a wider audience.

“This week was about us coming to America, really putting our flags down, building our bridges with our African American brothers and sisters, expanding our coasts, beyond Africa the continent, and embracing our brothers and sisters here in America.

“…they gave Tyla’s ‘Water’ an award, [and were] playing Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti’s ‘Water’ in the background. Is that an organization that understands us?”

But Mason earlier said there were ongoing conversations on that aspect, but Africans are expected to further show their interest and commitment to set the ball rolling.

To him, “It’s something we talk about and kinda figure out how can the academy be helpful. Is there a place for the academy in different countries [like] we’ve done in Latin America? Potentially, we can do the same in Africa. But we need to learn more. We need to listen. We obviously cannot just go around doing what we think is right for different countries. We have to let other countries and other regions let us know what would work for your territory.”

For now, there is still an ongoing debate across social media filled with varied sentiments as to whether the organizers of the Grammy Awards scheme indeed used African artists to either test or regain their lagging popularity.”