In fact, seven of the nine African artists nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award – one of the world’s most sought after music awards – are West African. Most of these make music driven by Afrobeats sounds.
Afrobeats is a broad, generic term for African contemporary popular music with rhythmic and harmonic influences of West Africa’s highlife and Afrobeat traditions and Euro-American funk and hip-hop.
For the 2022 edition of the Grammy Awards, Nigeria’s Wizkid is nominated twice – for best global music album and best global performance. Wizkid won his first Grammy Award in 2021 for the video of Brown Skin Girl, a track he made with US superstar Beyoncé.
The 31-year-old stands out as a leading Afrobeats artist from Nigeria whose music has already made a huge sway on the charts of many countries. Wizkid boasts over 32 hits, more than 70 music awards, 50 singles and four albums, as well as sold out concert performances across Africa, Europe and America. As a result, he commands a fan base of more than 30 million combined followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
His songs straddle the rhythmic texture of Nigerian pop that connects with West African diaspora communities across the globe. And when it comes to his career, he set his eyes firmly on America and strategically propelled himself to global fame.
Wizkid was born Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun on 16 July 1990 in Surulere, Lagos State, Nigeria. He started singing and recording music at the age of 11 in a group called the Glorious Five. He joined Empire Mates Entertainment record label in 2009.
The songwriter, singer and performer worked hard in the early days of his music career in Nigeria’s highly competitive industry. In one of his hit songs, Ojuelegba, he narrates his experience at Mo’Dogg studio in Lagos, where he toiled for a better life. He became famous in Nigeria in 2011 after the release of his debut album titled Superstar. The album opened up many more live performance opportunities.
As a young star who foresaw his music traveling beyond Nigeria, Wizkid seized every opportunity to make connections across the music world. For instance, when US R&B star Chris Brown (also famous for allegations of sexual violence against women) performed in Lagos in 2012, Wizkid was with him on stage and subsequently collaborated with Brown on the song African Bad Gyal.
Unlike some other Nigerian popular musicians, Wizkid understood the power of transnational collaboration and worked hard to align his music within the structure and texture of American hip-hop and R&B. In a 2019 interview, he is quoted as saying he did not make music just to be an African superstar.
