By Evans Ufeli Esq
To fold the vast, breathing continent of Africa into a single prize slot is to try to bottle a rainforest in a thimble. Music in Africa is not a monolith but a constellation: a riot of tongues, timbres, tempos, and histories that has birthed some of the most vital, innovative, and electrifying sounds of our age. To consign Tyla, Davido, and a host of other luminous artists to the same narrow category is less a celebration of diversity than a flattening of it; a professional misstep that risks erasing the particularities that make each artist’s work compelling.
Consider the palette. African music is a prismatic field where rhythms are languages and instruments carry genealogies. From the pulsating, hi-hat-laced buoyancy of Afrobeats that pulses from Lagos, to the slow, sticky euphoria of Amapiano in South Africa’s townships; from the undulating guitar arabesques of Highlife and Soukous, to the plaintive, modal strains of West African griot traditions; each style is embedded in distinct social practices, histories, and sonic logics. They are born of different dances, different ceremonies, different technological economies and studio cultures. To place them beside one another under a single banner risks rewarding mainstream crossover appeal over the fidelity and craft of genres that do not fit the global commercial frame.
Tyla’s emergence is a case in point. Her voice and aesthetic carry the imprint of South African contemporary pop, threaded with R&B sensibilities and anchored in local dance-floor currents. It is an idiom shaped by South African studio flows, radio formats, and performance circuits. Davido, by contrast, rises from the West African Afrobeats lineage; a solar, percussion-forward idiom with its own cadences, linguistic play, and rhythmic negotiations. Both are undeniable talents, but to judge them by the same yardstick is akin to judging a violin and a djembe by who makes the loudest sound.
This is not mere fastidiousness about taxonomy. Categories convey value. They shape which stories are told and which economies are enabled. When a global awards body compresses African work into a monolithic category, it privileges those sounds that most readily approximate Western pop structures and commercial viability. It marginalizes the subtle virtuosity of traditional instruments, the painstaking preservation and reinvention of folk idioms, and the experimental edges where young artists are grafting ancestral modalities onto electronic frameworks. In short, it perpetuates a form of cultural centrism: the center dictates what counts as recognizably “African” music.
What, then, should reform look like? First, recognition that plurality demands plurality of categories. The Grammys and similar institutions could begin by creating distinctions that reflect lived musical realities: categories for contemporary African pop and Afrobeats, for traditional and folk performance, for African hip-hop and rap, for electronic dance expressions like Amapiano or Gqom, and for regional genres whose influence spans national borders. These are not artificial divisions but acknowledgments of the ecosystems that nurture artists, audiences, and creative communities.
Second, the adjudication process must be decolonized. Panels should include a broad array of African musicologists, journalists, producers, and artists who possess intimate knowledge of the genres represented. Voting bodies ought to be educated about the socio-cultural contexts that shape these sounds rather than relying on familiarity alone. The criteria for excellence should value authenticity, innovation, cultural significance, and technical artistry not merely commercial metrics or Western-market readiness.
Third, structural support should accompany recognition. New categories must be paired with investment in discovery initiatives, workshops, and partnerships that amplify lesser-known regional scenes. Award categories without genuine outreach can become cosmetic; a token trophy that fails to change market dynamics or the industry pipelines that determine who receives airplay, bookings, and publishing opportunities.
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Finally, naming matters. The language used to define categories should be precise and respectful, avoiding catchalls like “African” that smooth over multiplicity. Names that honor specific genres or regions, or that embrace terms favored by practitioners themselves, will better reflect the music’s lived reality and help educate global audiences.
This critique is not to deny progress where it exists. The fact that conversations about representation have reached mainstream award platforms shows change is possible. Yet real justice is not performed by a single shelf on which an entire continent’s artistry is deposited. It is performed by structures that recognize complexity, by juries that know the music intimately, and by awards that expand rather than compress.
If the Grammys or any global institution wishes to honor African music in a manner worthy of its riches, it must do more than gesture. It must listen deeply, consult widely, and redesign its architecture to allow many songs, many rhythms, and many stories to stand in their own right. Only then will Tyla, Davido, and the multitudes between and beyond them be appreciated not as tokens in a flattened category, but as distinct stars in a vast, resplendent firmament.
