From iMullar’s Ones to watch 2023 to wining a Grammy
Winning a Grammy is every artist’s dream, it’s the music industry’s highest honour. Since its first award show in 1959, the Recording Academy has become widely recognised as the biggest award in music. Over the years, there have been several changes made regarding the structure of the awards to stay in touch with current culture. And the latest update was one that was going to benefit the African music industry.
In 2023, the Recording Academy added three new categories, most notably the Grammy Award for “Best African Music Performance.” To African artists, it wasn’t just good news, it was another source of motivation to reach higher. The gap between music’s greatest institution and African artists had narrowed significantly, and the Grammys were now within arm’s reach.
The first-time category of Best African Music Performance came with stiff competition. With Asake’s “Amapiano,” Burna Boy’s “City Boy,” Davido’s “Unavailable,” Ayra Starr’s “Rush” and Tyla’s “Water” all up for the golden gramophone. In a history-making moment, Tyla, the 22-year-old South African starlet came out on top as the winner. Still in disbelief, on stage, her first words were, “What the heck?! This is crazy, I never thought I’d say I won a Grammy at 22 years old!” At the ceremony, she was met with applause that echoed throughout Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, but on social media, it was a different story altogether.
Unsurprisingly, there was a major uproar on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) in response to her win, with many claiming the Amapiano-leaning act didn’t deserve the award. Not winning felt like a massive letdown for Afrobeats fans, who felt like the genre and giants like Burna Boy and Davido opened the doors for global mainstream acceptance only to be snubbed. “The Grammy Awards and the Recording Academy, they benefited from the popularity of the Nigerians that were nominated,” popular UK-based radio personality, Adesope Olajide claimed in a video. “They have no clue, they know nothing about our culture,” he continued, pointing out that when Tyla received her award for “Water” the ceremony played Fela Kuti’s “Water No Get Enemy” instead, an awkward error that echoed his point.
The frustration of Afrobeats fans is understandable to an extent, but there’s another whole part of this narrative that hasn’t been explored. For clarity, Music tech company Splice partnered with Billboard to exclusively release key data about what sounds have trended. In their year-end data downloads for sounds tagged as “Amapiano” were up by 826% year-over-year, with searches going up by 309%, and trending in 17 cities. Hip-hop stronghold Los Angeles is the highest trending city for the rising genre, with growth up by 1,003%. Meanwhile, Splice numbers claim downloads of Trap sounds are down by 14% globally since last year, even in the genre’s birthplace of Atlanta, where those downloads fell by 20%. The numbers don’t lie: Amapiano is the new wave, and songs like “Water” aren’t just a fad, but a testament to the power of new African sounds in mainstream music.
If the odds seemed to favour Tyla, it’s only because of her talent and grind. From opening for Chris Brown’s Under The Influence tour, to penning a deal with Epic Records after her 2019 song “Getting Late” amassed over 5 million views on YouTube alone, she has been an inevitable force and we are just seeing the results of calculated hard work. This is not an overnight success – we didn’t name her one of the top artists to look out for in 2023 for nothing.
Up until now, the Global Music category was one of the only awards African artists vied for. The category was conceived to showcase international performers “exhibiting non-European, Indigenous traditions.” But it’s reductive and dismissive at best. The newly-introduced Best African Music Performance category might be a step in the right direction but it’s also a simplistic way of acknowledging African music: lumping together a continent full of diverse sounds instead of giving individual acts their due by nominating them in existing categories. When Miriam Makeba, a South African singer and activist, took home the Best Folk Recording in 1966, not only was she the first African musician to win a Grammy, she did so competing against peers in her genre – regardless of origin. It gets you thinking, is an all-African category really progress? Or was Makeba’s nomination and win in an established category more of an achievement, because it wasn’t a handout but an industry acknowledgment in her genre?
“Water,” a proper global hit with shades of Amapiano, Afropop and Contemporary R&B serves as the perfect concoction for this conversation. With sing-along lyrics and a viral dance challenge performed by an electric entertainer, no one could have made a better case for African music equaling mainstream music. Unsurprising, Tyla’s hit song topped Rolling Stone’s list of 40 best Afropop songs of the year, and debuted at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making her the highest-charting African female soloist ever – surpassing Miriam Makeba’s peak with “Pata Pata” at number 12 in 1968.
Tyla’s Grammy win is a win for the whole continent, a testament to how far Africa’s music scene has come, and most importantly, that there’s more to our continent’s sound, not just Afrobeats. The Recording Academy alters its awards scheme to reflect the reality of modern music and “Water” fits the narrative. You might call it a viral TikTok song or a Gen Z mainstay, I call it a modern-day hit song.
