Temilade Openiyi, popularly known as Tems on Sunday night bagged her first Grammy award. Tems who featured alongside Drake on Future’s ‘Wait for You’ took home the award for Best Rap Melodic Performance. The song was also nominated for the Best Rap Song award.
Tems now joins Sade Adu, the British-Nigerian singer as the female artists of Nigerian heritage who have won the Grammy.
Sade took home the Grammy Award in 1986 when she emerged as the winner of the Best New Artist award.
Burna Boy who has a Grammy award too on his shelf however missed out on the two nominations he featured in. His album ‘Love Damini’, and his song ‘Last Last’ were nominated for Best Global Music Album and Best Global Music Performance awards respectively.The winners of these categories respectively were the Japanese musician Masa Takumi for his album ‘Sakura’ and ‘Bayethe’ by Wouter Kellerman, Zakes Bantwini and Nomcebo Zikode.The winners were announced at the premiere ceremony of the Grammys.
The Grammy has long eluded mainstream Nigerian artists but in 2021 when Burna Boy took home the award for Best Global Music Album for his album Twice as Tall, more artists have strived to clinch the golden gramophone.
With Tems’ win, Nigerians took to social media to express the hope that indeed it’s Afrobeats’ time to make more of a mark.
Vanessa Obioha
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