New Grammy category for African music ignores almost all of Africa
The 2024 Grammy awards will see the introduction of a new category: "best African music performance."
When the category was announced last year, Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr. stated that it would be "able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists" than the two existing global Grammy categories, where African artists have traditionally had the only real chance of scoring a nomination.
The actual nominees represent only two countries: Nigeria (Burna Boy, Davido, Ayra Starr and Asake & Olamide) and South Africa (Tyla, and producer Musa Keys, who is featured on Davido's track).
The Academy had even specifically listed some of the genres they hoped to include in the category, from chimurenga (traditional thumb-piano music from Zimbabwe
