Who should count as African?

Grammy awards have dedicated space for African music, but just one year after the introduction of the category is already showing the controversial.

The best African musical performance debuted that Tyla South Africa’s victory for her hit song Water, a blend of South African Amapian and Afropopop.

It was a move that welcomed throughout the industry, especially African artists.

But the nominations for this year’s award raised their eyebrows, especially with American R&B stars Chris Brown.

The 35-year-old is nominated for his individual sensational scale, which includes elements Aphrobeats and contains visiting vocals of Nigerian artists David and Loyay.

However, the participation of an American artist in the African music category has caused a discussion.

Should artists who are not African consider in the category intended to portray an African talent?

“Music talks about inclusivity. We don’t want to fence people from the genres,” says Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr for the BBC.

“If we start to decide who can or cannot make a certain type of music, we lose the essence of creativity.”

Grammy’s head explains that such a cross -man is expected.

“We’ve already seen him with Latin, we saw him with K-POP and now you start seeing him with Aphrobeats and Amapiano,” he says.

“We like to honor all the music [regardless of] Where does it come from or who makes it. If he is great, we want to celebrate him. “

The second bone of arguments this year is the dominance of Afrobeats, which has its roots in Nigeria and Gani.

There is a feeling that Grammys remains too focused on this, to the exclusion of other African music genres, despite calls for inclusivity.

Nigerian music journalist Ayomide Tayo says he understands why Afrobeats are dominated by this year’s awards.

“I think Afrobeats are no better,” he says BBC.

“Only Aphrobeats had more than three decades of exposure. We consistently pushed great music, superstars and events that attracted the world to it,” Tayo explains based in Lagos.

The Nigerians who live abroad also played a key role in the Aphrobeath population.

“The Nigerian Diaspora in England and North America is one of the key factors why Afrobeats exploded in Europe and the US,” Tayo says.

While other music business professionals, based in Africa, see a bright future for other African music genres, they say that this year could be one -off.

For example, Amapiano, a genre that surpassed 1.4 billion flows on Spotify’s music application in 2023.

Raphael Benza, head of the record label based in Johannesburg, says the best African performance is against Pigeonholling.

“Coming from the Amapiano House, I would say [musicians] They do an extremely good job and I think you will see Amapiano artists nominated in this category next year, “he tells the BBC.

The best category of African music performance is presented as a way to respect the increasing impact of Africa on global music.

When Tyla won, she beat Nigerian heavy weights like David and Burna Boy, establishing her place on the international stage.

Since then, the 22-year-old has been noticed at a Met Gala in New York and is shown in top fashion magazines, proving that Effect Grammys is real.

This year’s nominees, however, almost completely switched to Nigerian artists, with Yemi Aladde, Burna Boy, Tems and a common Nomination for ASAKE & Wizkid, as well as Davido and Loyay who performed on the hit Chris Brown.

“To be a fair to Chris Brown, he has been invested in Aphrobeats and African music for a long time,” Tayo says, explaining that the American musician flew to Nigeria to work with David and Wizkid.

“We have a joke in Nigeria, which we say is Chris Brown Nigerian, because of the way it appears all the time in our songs and our music videos.”

Last month, he also held two huge sales at the 90,000-seat stadium in Johannesburg-S people who traveled from all over South Africa to see his performance, for whom fans said he had electrified.

African musicians won Grammys much before the best prize for African music performance was established.

South African Mariam Makeba was the first to win one – the best folk shoot – 1966 to collaborate with Harry Belafonte, called a simple evening with Belafonte/Makeb.

African artists became more game after 1992, with the introduction of the world’s best music album.

This category has passed through different forms over the years – including division in traditional and contemporary world music awards – it is still known today as the best global music album.

Multiple award -winning winners include Angélique Kidjo, Youssou N’Dour, but Farka Touré and Ladysmith Black Mambazazo.

But African musicians often broke from that category, for example, South Africa Black Coffee won the best dance/electronic album 2022.

Hope is that he will oppose the dominance of Aphobeat, more categories from Africa will be offered on Grammy in the years to come.

This would cover the increasing popularity of African music globally – and would better reflect a huge number of musical styles produced in Africa.