In 2023, the Recording Academy introduced the Best African Music Performance category, a moment celebrated as overdue recognition of Africa’s growing influence on global music. However, since its inception, there has been a contentious debate on what counts as “African music.”
The timing of the category’s creation was no surprise. African music, particularly Nigerian Afrobeats, had been topping global charts for a while. Davido helped kickstart this era with Fall in 2017, followed by CKay’s 2019/2020 Love Nwantiti, Wizkid’s Essence featuring Tems in 2020, and Rema’s 5× RIAA Platinum certified Calm Down in 2022/2023. This time period, where Nigerian music consistently shaped global charts for nearly a decade, gave the Grammys ample reason to create a dedicated category.
However, in a December 2022 meeting between the Recording Academy, artists, label executives, and stakeholders from both the United States and Africa, it was argued that the category should aim to give all African artists, not just Afrobeats performers, a stage of their own, even though Afrobeats acts had dominated for a long stretch. The genres and cultures of African music needed to be captured in breadth. For years, African artists were grouped under World Music or Global Music categories, labels that flattened entire continents into a single, nebulous place. The Academy had to act as the growing prominence of Afrobeats, Amapiano, and other African genres became impossible to ignore on the global stage.
So, the Best African Music Performance category was created, and the very first nominees included Tyla, whose meteoric rise to the mainstream with “Water,” came around the same time as its creation,had made her the frontrunner. She looked like an inevitable winner, especially since “Calm Down” and its remix had been released too early to qualify for nomination.
This is where a disconnect happened, because some fans, artists, and industry personnel within the Afrobeats scene in particular felt a sense of ignorance from the Grammys for categorizing Tyla’s mainstream pop-leaning, yet African-rhythmed music as African music. They felt somewhat robbed, But that assumption is wrong.
Tyla’s music leans toward mainstream pop, yes, but it unmistakably carries African rhythms, melodies, and textures, it would be a lie to say otherwise. Her recent win with the Ghanaian produced “Push 2 Start” was deserved, as the record stands as a textbook example of Afropop. The argument that her style doesn’t “sound African enough” is egregiously ignorant, because the very premise of the category rejects that narrow thinking. This is not an Afrobeats category, or an Amapiano category, but rather an opportunity to showcase how African artists can redefine global music while staying connected to African identity.
Tyla, Tems, Ayra Starr, Wizkid, Asake, and many others who have been nominated or have won are exemplifying this balance: polished, mainstream-ready, yet African in essence.
This is not an indictment of anyone’s music. For it to reach this stage is a staggering feat, and African artists should embrace it and continue to achieve even greater success. It didn’t start here, and it certainly isn’t ending here.
But African music should not consistently suffer from a predilection to give it a shared definition. African music is not a type of sound. Africa is not sonically uniform, and it never has been. From Highlife to Amapiano, Afrobeat to Alté, Bongo Flava to Afro-house, African music has always been fluid and evolving. African music is not a genre, it is an ecosystem, like any other.
Though there is criticism and skepticism of how the Grammys operate, it is also necessary to exercise critical thinking rather than falling into the simplistic argument about what African music is or should be. The category, while new, is clear in its purpose, at least for now: to honor the continent’s musical landscape as a whole.
