The Grammy Awards gives Nigerian Awards A Reason to Step Up | Here’s Why

It’s a Tuesday morning and like all my mornings, the first thing I do before I check whether I am even breathing well is ‘open Twitter’. I open Twitter and the first thing on the trend table for me is ‘Grammy’. Same thing has been there since Sunday night and the current tweets are either from folks fawning over the Bangtan Boys, or as mere mortals know them ‘BTS’, or folks that can’t get enough of Justin Beiber’s ‘Josh2funny-inspired‘ coat alongside his ‘wife’s egg of life themed China white material‘ on the red carpet. Then there are the people that are still fighting about how Wizkid didn’t win any of the categories he was nominated for.

Outrage!

Everybody dey vex.

Wizkid was nominated for the Best Global Performance and Best Global Music Album (We all know this by now) and the fans are angry. Personally, I’m happy we’re getting where I want us to be. Forget the Grammys and stick to the Nigerian Awards.

But will the Nigerian Awards step up? Before you start agreeing with me, recall when the Headies Awards announced the forthcoming show, did you not drag them for hosting the show in Atlanta?

Did you not argue that rather than give the winner of the Prestigious ‘Next Rated’ award a Bentley, they should get… Make I no talk this part, I no plan offend anybody today.

Did you not fight tooth and nail to despise the moves, now wey Grammy don show you their colour, you want to agree. Hold on.

The Globalisation of Nigerian Music A.K.A Afrobeats to the world gives a shot at global visibility and recognition to our artists, producers, songwriters, and a plethora of players in our entire industry… as well as our Awards.

A celebration of our music industry has moved past being a Lagos affair. Yes, it is nice to top those charts and break those records but perhaps, if the world can see how much better we appreciate our artistes on a global scale; we might begin to influence the way we are thought of.

And the Headies is just one Award, there are many other awards that are dedicated to Nigerian music. They need to show up and show out. The time is now. We’ve always had validation, the charts and arenas and numbers don’t lie.

The Grammy Awards is one of those farfetched achievements, we all loved the idea of a Grammy because it seemed impossible at some point. But we’re past that point. We have artistes who have won it and IT IS NOT A FLUKE.

Can we move on to create other Achievements and/or Awards for our Artistes?

Let’s take a look at the folks abroad small for this part.

In 2001, the Black Entertainment Television network created The BET Awards to celebrate the achievements of African Americans and other American minorities in entertainment, the awards cover acting, music, sports, and other genres of entertainment. 21 years later, here we are. The BET is established, some of our finest acts have won the BET Awards and the show is still waxing strong. The Award is equally important.

Not Satisfied?

The Brit Awards which is sometimes referred to as the British version of the Grammys was established in 1977 to showcase the UK music industry operating as a platform to also to introduce and promote new talent.

At what point do we want to have a Nigerian Version of the Grammys?

Recall how despite all the collective voting, Fela wasn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame? Our emotions were patronized to push traffic.

The Afrobeats Hall of Fame is a homegrown gem that needs the Global Level PR, make we dey push our faves, drag on it like it’s the Grammy because it is. It represents the culture, the past, the present, and the future of the sound that took over the world by storm. There is no way Fela would not be inducted in this one. But This hall has to sprout, we have to water it to ensure it is not watered down. And everybody has a role to play.

Lastly, If you don’t take anything away from all of this, at least take this; FORGET THE GRAMMYS.