Did you know that Africa never had a music category at the Grammy Awards until 2024?
That’s right! The first ever African music category at the Grammy Awards known as “Best African Music Performance” never existed until last year when Tyla, the South African music star, won it with her song titled “Water”.
The award seeks to celebrate Afrobeats, Amapiano, and other African styles on the global stage, and other nominees for this particular award included Asake & Olamide’s “Amapiano”, Burna’s “City Boy”, Davido ft Musa Keys’ “Unavailable” and Ayra Starr’s “Rush”.
This matters a lot because it is the first Grammy award category to be dedicated specifically to African music and it purports to celebrate African music genres including Afrobeats, Amapiano, Afro-fusion, Highlife, Gqom and the likes.
It doesn’t look like much but it marks the formal recognition of Africa’s cultural and economic influence in global music. Overtime, African artists had been dominating streaming charts, and selling out concerts but never had a global music award of their own until 2024.
It should however be noted that some African artists, like Wizkid and Burna Boy, had already won Grammys before this category existed.
@Alaro_Basit
