By Emmanuel Obisue
After the conferment of the 66th edition of the Grammy Awards held yesterday, none of Nigeria’s 10 artists nominated in five categories was considered worthy of the global awards.
Young South African hotshot, Tyla won the inaugural ‘Best African Music Performance’ award with her hit track “Water”, ahead of Nigeria’s Burna Boy, Davido, Tems, Ayra Starr, Olamide and Asake.
In another category, Burna Boy and Davido lost to Shakti as the world fusion band won with the album, “This Moment”, ahead of Burna Boy’s “I Told Them”, Davido’s “Timeless” albums, and others.
The duo were also not considered worthy for the Best Global Music Performance category, which was won by Indian composer Zakir Hussain for the track “Pashto” featuring Bela Fleck and Edger Meyer, Lil Durk’s collaboration with J Cole, “All My Life” dashed Burna Boy’s hopes of winning any trophy out of four nominations by claiming the Grammy for Best Melodic Rap.
Nigeria’s Tems who won her first Grammy in 2023 in the Best Melodic Rap category for her collaboration with Future and Drake on the track ‘Wait for You’, lost in the Song Written for Visual Media category.
The Grammy Awards which held once again at Los Angeles saw performances from some of music’s biggest stars.
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South African Comedian and former “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah returned to host the ceremony for the fourth time in a row.
America’s SZA earned the most nominations of any artist this year with nine, including nods for album of the year, record of the year and song of the year. Although she had earned 15 Grammy nominations prior to this year’s selections, her sole win coming into Sunday was for best pop duo/group performance in 2022 for “Kiss Me More.”
Competing with SZA in the album of the year category was Taylor Swift and her 2022 album “Midnights.” A win in that category would give Swift four career album of the year awards, the most for any artist, the CBS News reported.
Audio Engineer and Mixer, Serban Ghenea who has worked with Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, earned seven nominations, along with Victoria Monét and Phoebe Bridgers, who got six nods with her band boygenius and one for her collaboration on SZA’s “Ghost in the Machine,” which earned the Grammy for best pop duo/group performance prior to the start of the televised show.
Billie Eilish won Best song written for visual media, and her brother Finneas for their song “What Was I Made For?” off “Barbie The Album”.
