Grammys 2022: Spiteful Stan Culture Spoiling Sportsmanship for Afrobeats
Fans of the Nigerian musicians who missed out on the gramophone took bitterness to another level and such a trait should be a cause for worry.
For many lovers of Afrobeats and some of its exponents who got shortlisted for the 64th edition of the Grammys Awards, Sunday night would not have gone so well. On Twitter alone, the atmosphere was pumped so high you could literally feel the pulsating heartbeats of people online.
Wizkid and Tems’ Essence had been the song of the summer, with Made in Lagos album proving to be a late bloomer that eventually took the global airwaves by storm. Big Wiz rode on the waves to release a deluxe edition of his 2020 album, just in time to hop on the nomination bus of the Recording Academy.
Two nominations had made many believe that he would win at least one. There’s also his co-crooner on Essence, Tems, and other Nigerians like Burna Boy, Femi and Made Kuti, who all got nominated for a chance at landing the gramophone.
But the harsh reality was that no bottle of champagne was popped for any Nigerian. The only artistes who got congratulatory messages were Yemi Alade and Mr Eazi who contributed to Angelique Kidjo’s Mother Nature. However, they will only be getting participation certificates, not plaques, as their contributions were not beyond a single track on the 13-track body of work.
All the drafts that people had kept, celebrations planned and disses arranged all went up in smoke. And the fact that there were some sets of people who could gloat over African artistes missing out on awards shows that all the ‘for the culture’ talks are for the Gram, and nothing more.
I imagine how Wizkid must have felt on seeing the distortion of Made Maid in Lagos , Machala Machanfani, among other disturbing posts.
Some even went as far as making vile comments on the Instagram posts of the legendary Beninese singer and serial Grammy winner, Angelique Kidjo for ‘denying’ the Starboy a Grammy award. There were those who went as far as rubbishing what is already a classic body of work.
At a time when critics and analysts have been preaching for more synergy from African art makers, to further push the Afrobeats to the world agenda harder than ever before, it is rather shameful to see all the dehumanising remarks from supposed passionate fans of African music.
Grammy remains a foreign award, and its tune will always be dictated by the American society that pays the piper. There is only so much we can do but there is definitely no taking over of the American award platform.
Can we build an awards show with the kind of attitude displayed on Sunday night? Definitely not. Davido headlined the official theme song for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Wizkid is headlining another show in Paris while Odogwu is the poster boy for the April show at Maddison Square Garden.
Grammys grumbles nonetheless, there is no stopping the Afrobeats momentum and as it stands, the only thing that can put that in jeopardy is this growing inglorious stan culture.