The recent Grammy Awards, held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, heralded another milestone for African music. Yet beneath the glitter and red carpet lies a less-discussed issue: the challenges African artists face in their quest for Grammy recognition.
Nigerian music giants like Davido, Burna Boy, and Wizkid have achieved global success, but their path to Grammy recognition is shaped by hidden rules and industry dynamics.
Take the case of Davido, nominated in the Best African Music Performance category — a category that debuted only in 2024, underscoring how recently the Recording Academy acknowledged African music as deserving its own space.
His nominated track “With You,” featuring Omah Lay, has surpassed 100 million streams and become one of the biggest songs in West African music. Yet it ultimately lost to South African-British singer Tyla and her global hit “Push 2 Start.”
On the surface, it appears as a simple announcement of winners and losers. Yet the reality is far more complex, shaped by factors beyond talent or popularity.
The Voting Power Imbalance
Grammy winners are chosen by members of the Recording Academy — a body of over 13,000 voting members, most of whom are based in the U.S. and may not specialise in African music. While Nigerian artists dominate streams, airplay, and festivals across Africa and globally, voting patterns are often influenced by exposure within a narrow industry circle. For African artists, this can mean competing with limited visibility among voters, despite massive regional acclaim.
Since 2019, the Recording Academy has worked to diversify its over 13,000 U.S.-based voting members, increasing the representation of people of colour from 24% to 38%. CEO Harvey Mason Jr. notes the membership is more representative, but a mainly U.S. electorate still decides awards for global artists. Reform is visible, but challenges remain.
Campaigning Behind Closed Doors
Another untold factor is the role of campaigns. Record labels invest heavily in “For Your Consideration” promotions, ensuring their artists’ work reaches Grammy voters. Tours, networking events, and targeted showcases in the U.S. often weigh heavily in decisions.
Tyla’s “Push 2 Start” was the highest-selling song in the U.S. among all nominees in the category, with over 500,000 units sold in the first half of 2025 — and the only nominated song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 88. No Nigerian song achieved that feat. Her strong U.S. label infrastructure and high visibility in American pop culture circles positioned her not only artistically but also logistically.
Joey Akan, founder of the Afrobeats Intelligence podcast, captured this bluntly: “Davido didn’t win. This marks his fourth Grammy nomination without a win, a painful pattern for one of Afrobeats’ most relentless builders. The system works. It simply wasn’t designed to capture everything Afrobeats actually is.”
Popularity vs. Votes
It is critical to understand — beyond the popular misconception — that the Grammys are not a popularity contest. Streaming numbers, social media buzz, and sold-out stadiums do not translate into votes. The awards are determined by a private voting process, opaque by design, leaving room for surprises, heartbreaks, and the occasional perceived injustice.
Davido’s fanbase — one of the most passionate and vocal in African music — could not cast a single ballot. Neither could the millions who streamed his work across Africa, Europe, and the diaspora.
Producer and songwriter Cobhams Asuquo captured this frustration precisely, arguing that the Grammys benefit economically from Nigeria’s vibrant music ecosystem while offering little in return: “When we show up, we show out. We rent hotels, buy drinks, buy clothes, we do all of these things. Then it’s like a carrot is dangling in front of us, and then the carrot goes away.”
In this regard, Grammy recognition operates in a completely different universe from public popularity, and African artists and their supporters must internalise this distinction to recalibrate their expectations and strategy.
The African Music Narrative
The Best African Music Performance category is still new, and its structure continues to evolve. African music is being celebrated, yes, but often in a way that isolates it as a novelty, rather than integrating it as an equal contender among global genres. Artists like Davido and his Nigerian colleagues are not just competing with peers — they are navigating an ecosystem that is still learning to appreciate the breadth and depth of African creativity.
The very existence of a standalone African category is a double-edged development. On one hand, it creates dedicated recognition. On the other hand, it reinforces the idea that African music belongs in its own lane — separate from, rather than integrated into, the mainstream categories where global impact is truly measured. Until an Afrobeats record can genuinely compete for Record of the Year, the ceiling remains visible.
The Path Forward
Davido’s Grammy loss—his fourth nomination without a win—highlights the underlying issue: Grammy outcomes reflect exposure, campaigning, and voter demographics more than music excellence. The central argument is that structural and systemic factors, rather than artistic merit alone, often determine the awards given to African artists. For Nigerian musicians, the challenge is to gain international recognition by both excelling globally and strategically navigating these realities.
The next step is deliberate investment — not just in music, but in the ecosystem surrounding it. That means deeper U.S. label partnerships, more aggressive Grammy campaign spending, sustained presence at American industry events, and greater advocacy for broader voter representation within the Recording Academy itself. The talent has never been the problem. The infrastructure is the frontier.
The untold story is clear: African artists now shape a generation’s sound but encounter entrenched systems that decide Grammy winners. The key argument is that real competition occurs in the hidden corridors of power, where influence and strategic visibility outweigh public acclaim. To win top prizes, African artists must master these behind-the-scenes dynamics long before public nominations are revealed.
