“Very Nigeria-leaning when it’s been a year of great music from Southern Africa,” is the word from Music Consultant Gracey Mae in regard to the 2024 Grammy nominations announced on Friday, November 10, 2023.
The ceremony marks the first time the Best African Performance category was included in the Grammy nominations. Mae led a team of U.K.-based music professionals and journalists who proposed the new category to the Recording Academy earlier this year. For the inaugural year, the nominees are “Amapiano” by ASAKE & Olamide, “City Boys” by Burna Boy, “UNAVAILABLE” by Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Rush” by Ayra Starr, and “Water” by Tyla.
South Africa is Sub-Saharan South Africa’s largest market accounting for 31.4% growth in 2022 versus a modest 2.4% growth the prior year according to the IFPI’s Global music report.
Musa Keys and Tyla, both South Africans, received their first Grammy nominations, compared to Nigerian artist Burna Boy who was nominated in four categories, including Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Sitting on Top of the World,” Best Global Performance for “Alone,” and Best Global Music Album for “I Told Them.”
“Overall, everyone is happy for Davido! It’s his first nominations, and Burna has been nominated 10 times now,” confirmed Gracey Mae. Davido got a total of three nominations, adding Best Global Performance (“Feel”) and Best Global Music Album (“Timeless”) to his haul.
Other nominees in the Best Global Music Performance category include “Shadow Forces” by Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily; “Milagro y Disastre” by Mexican musician Silvana Estrada; “Abundance in Millet” by Falu & Gaurav Shah (featuring PM Narendra Modi); and “Pashto” by Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer & Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia.
In the Best Melodic Rap Performance category, Burna Boy’s “Sittin’ on Top of the World” featuring 21 Savage competes with “Attention” by Doja Cat, “Spin Bout U” by Drake & 21 Savage, “All My Life” by Lil Durk featuring J. Cole, and “Low” by SZA.
Gracey Mae expressed surprise at seeing the fast-rising sensation Tyla, whose song “Water” has been the No. 1 song on the Afrobeats chart for four weeks in a row. “Amapiano” by Asake hasn’t been his strongest song this year, so there’s a little surprise that he’s nominated for this song, even though he definitely deserves this nomination; the timeline feels it could have been for another song,” added Mae.
However, she noted that there are a couple of top-selling African artists missing from this year’s nominees. “There’s uproar that there are no Wizkid nominations, and his album was eligible based on the year in review, and shock that Rema didn’t get nominated for ‘Calm Down’ as it’s been the biggest song of the year globally for Afrobeats,” she said.
Although “Calm Down” was the most popular Afrobeats song in the US in the last year, it was released on February 11, 2022, outside this year’s eligibility period. “And it was also submitted for nomination last year,” Mae confirmed. CKay is featured on Janelle Monáe’s “Know Better” from the album “The Age of Pleasure,” nominated for Album of the Year, and Tems’ nomination comes as a writer for Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up,” which is up for Best Song Written For Visual Media. “Lift Me Up” has now been nominated for an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe.
Final-round voting for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards starts on December 14, 2023, and runs until January 4, 2024. Winners across Grammy categories will be revealed on February 4, 2024, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. CBS and Paramount+ will broadcast the annual Grammy Awards Ceremony.
