To Grammy or not to Grammy?
With over 6 decades as a long-standing entertainment awards organisation. The Grammy is considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards, along with the Academy Awards (film), the Emmy Awards (television), and the Tony Awards (theatre and Broadway).
The first Grammy awards ceremony was held on the 4th May 1959 to honour and respect the musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958.
Today the Grammy award, or just the Grammy as it’s also referred to as, is an award presented by the Recording Academy to recognise achievements in the music industry, and to-date Burna Boy remains the ONLY Afrobeats/Afrofusion artist to be Grammy-nominated back to back for his efforts in the industry; but what does that really mean and look like for the artist, the industry and better yet Africa?
How good our talents are as a nation has nothing to do with our accolades, but rather they could be a nod to the world saying they want a piece of the African pie so how do WE choose to allow the world to eat?
Burna Boy, songwriter, rapper and dancer, who rose to prominence in 2012 after releasing “Like to Party”, the lead single from his debut studio album L.I.F.E (2013). In 2017, Burna Boy signed with Bad Habit/Atlantic Records in the United States and Warner Music Group internationally.
His third studio album Outside marked his major-label debut. In 2019, he won Best International Act at the 2019 BET Awards and was announced as an Apple Music Up, Next artist.
His fourth studio album African Giant was released in July 2019; it won Album of the Year at the 2019 All Africa Music Awards and was nominated for Best World Music Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. He was awarded the African Artiste of the year at the 2020 VGMA’s.
With all that being said let’s not forget that some of our other great musical artists have also been listed for their efforts within the industry with Tinariwen, who are in the same category with Burna Boy, they are a group of musicians from the Sahara region of northern Mali, Brown Skin Girl by Beyoncé ft. Wizkid, Everyday Life by Coldplay ft. Tiwa Savage and Yemi Alade who joins the lists of names to announce the 63rd Grammy nominations.
The Awards show will air on Sunday 31st January 2021
Lastly, stay up to date with all you need to know about African music at SOA, right here.
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Written by: Sakeena @simplysakeena
