Four top artists from Nigeria lost at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. There have been talks, and posts about boycotting the award. While it seems the emotions have subsided, it is imperative to look at factors that might have led to our poor showing at the prestigious award.
Almost every artist wants the Grammy award plaque on their shelf, they gravitate towards it, and they celebrate whenever they get nominated, however, only a small fraction of the nominees ever win.
The Recording Academy recognizes an outstanding achievement in music every year. The winner of each category is decided by secret voters. Voting Membership is for performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, instrumentalists, and other creators currently working in the music industry.
These voting members are people mostly in their 40s, 50s and so on. They are legends in their own right with years of experience gained in the industry.
Each year, artists are expected to submit their songs/albums via a record label or a distribution company. After enough consideration, the final list is released to the public. After this announcement, there are four to three months leading to the awards night.
While the Recording Academy continues to state that streaming numbers don’t determine who wins a Grammy award, in hindsight, it has some role to play. The recording members are busy people. What comes up on digital platforms or shown on television stations plays a role in their decision-making.
Tyla’s (winner of the Afrobeats Best Performance Category) “Water,” has been streamed close to four hundred million times on Spotify. Her live performance on “Live From Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Falon,” has been viewed more than 10 million times on Youtube. In October, “Water,” debuted at number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100. By January 2024, it peaked at number 7. With all these giant strides, it becomes a no-brainer for her to win the category. Her music received heavy rotation in the United States of America more than Asake’s “Lonely at The Top,” Davido’s “Unavailable,” or Burna Boy’s “City Boy.”
For example, Davido’s “Unavailable,” was streamed over 125 million times on Spotify. “Lonely at the Top,” by Asake has more than 56 million streams on Spotify with Burna Boy gathering 106 million plus streams with “City Boys.”
Afrobeats might have gone global nevertheless the sound genre still finds it difficult to penetrate the US. In the last twelve months, things have changed yet the changes can’t be compared to what is happening in the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, and European countries.
The attempt by Davido and Asake to explore the US media in the promotion of their album has been lackluster. These can be hinged on repetitive narrative. It finds Davido always speaking about his dad’s riches. Even Asake’s attempt at exploring H.E.R. star power on the “Lonely at the Top,” remix fell flat. The forced collaboration has only been able to garner 4 million views on YouTube.
Beyond his nomination for the Best Afrobeats Performance, Davido’s song ‘Feel’ was nominated for the Best Global Music Performance category, ‘ Timeless’ was nominated for the “Best Global Album of the Year” category, and his ‘Unavailable’ was nominated for “Best African Music Performance”. These categories were created to cater to the minority in music. The award winners have always been music that addresses a particular issue in society. For example, Angélique Kidjo won the Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album in 2020 with the album “Celia.” The album addressed global warming. Also the previous awards winners have been noted to have used traditional instruments in creating such albums with most of the recording done live. How many of the Afrobeats albums released ticked these boxes?
Some of these voting members still believed African music should be devoted to singing about poverty, famine, war, etc. They find it alien when an Afrobeats artistes sings about having a Betley or a Royce Rolls. I think a lot of education and enlightenment need to be done.
Where does the Afrobeats go from here? With just two months into the year, I think the artistes and music stakeholders are in for a good time. More music would be created. The Grammy dream won’t stop, more artistes will gun for the prize. Will they get it? Let’s check back this time next year.
and then