Tyla, the South African female singer, has written her name in gold after she won her first-ever Grammy Award, the Golden Gramophone for Best African Music Performance category with her song “Water”.
She defeated Davido featuring Musa Keys (“Unavailable”), Burna Boy (“City Boys”), Asake & Olamide (“Amapiano”), and Ayra Starr (“Rush”) at the 66th Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance, a new category created to honour music from the Africa continent.
The 22-year-old singer while receiving the award gave a shout-out to her family and said she never thought would win a GRAMMY at 22 years old.
“I never thought I’d say I won a Grammy at 22 years old. I know my mother’s crying somewhere in here,” Tyla said in her acceptance speech.
Although coming up against stiff competition, including massive Afrobeats stars Burna Boy and Davido, the massive appeal of Tyla’s hit song “Water” proved undeniable for GRAMMY voters.
In a blogpost by the Grammy Award, the amapiano-based pop song entered the Billboard Hot 100 last year, the first for a South African solo artist since Hugh Masekela in 1968. It later peaked at No. 7, making her the highest-charting African female solo musician in Billboard history. The song also went to No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs and Hip-Hop/R&B charts.
The 66th Grammy Award saw a record number of Nigerians nominated for different categories including the inaugural Best African Music Performance category with 5 Nigerian artists taking four out of five spots, however in a surprising turn of events no Nigerian won any of the awards nominated.
During the nominations, Nigeria saw a record of 10 nominations but has failed to win any of those categories.
The Best Global Music Album category was won by Shakti for his work ‘This Moment’ while the Best Global Music Performance category was won by Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir for their song ‘Pashto’.
