The Grammy Awards And African Music: A Brief History [Video]

For the first time in its 65-year history, the Grammy Awards in the U.S. has introduced an African category, Best African Music Performance, which recognizes the song of the year.

The Grammys is the most prestigious award in the largest music industry in the world. Its focus has always been US music styles in categories like pop, R&B, rap, country, jazz and classical.

As musical styles from abroad (or in Spanish) have moved into the US commercial market, the Grammy Foundation has tried to recognize them – beyond the generic “folk music” category it first used to put them in. So categories were established like Latin, Mexican, reggae, world music and global music.

Now Africa has its own best song category, the first continent with this distinction. This is clearly a nod to the growing popularity of African music in the US – notably Afrobeats from Nigeria.

Few African artists received Grammy nominations until 1992, when the Best World Music …