Grammy Awards is a series of awards presented annually in the United States by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (commonly called the Recording Academy) or the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (commonly called the Latin Recording Academy) to recognize achievement in the music industry all over the world.

This year’s award was won by very few Nigerians thereby prompting WuzupNigeria to go back the memory lane to see how well we’ve done globally in the music industry.

Sade Adu:

A British-Nigerian singer born on January 16, 1959, in Ibadan, Nigeria, and raised in London turned 62 on 16 January 2021 is one of Nigeria’s most successful singers. She made history as the first Nigerian singer to have won a Grammy Award.

She won her first Grammy in 1986 in the Best New Artist category. She also won the Best R&B Performance by a duo or group with vocals in 1994 for the song, “No Ordinary Love.”

Sade also won another Grammy in 2002 in the category of the Best Pop Vocal Album, with the song “Lovers Rock,” while in 2011, she won the Best R&B Performance by a group with vocals for “Soldier of Love.”

Sikiru Adepoju, a 69-year-old percussionist and recording artist hails from Nigeria. He primarily is in the genres of traditional African music and world music. He plays a variety of instruments and styles.
Born in Eruwa, Oyo State, Adepoju was a member of Ebenezer Obey’s Inter Reformers Band until he left for the US in 1985. The ‘drummer boy’ joined O. J. Ekemode’s Nigerian All-Stars, and three months later met Babatunde Olatunji.

He became an integral part of Olatunji’s Drums of Passion, and through Olatunji met Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart and Adepoju in 2009 with their Grammys
He was part of Mickey Hart’s group Planet Drum, whose album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 1991. He was also part of Mickey Hart’s latest group Global Drum Project, whose album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 51st annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on 8 February 2009.

Olalekan Babalola:

Born in 1960 in Lagos, Nigeria, Babalola is a Nigerian jazz percussionist and musician. He began playing the conga at a young age and he has released seven albums with joint efforts and won two Grammy Awards.
After primary and secondary education in Agege Lagos and Iwo in Oyo state, he left Nigeria for England in 1980 to study automobile engineering at the Chelsea College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering. He however dropped the engineering program for music after crossing the Atlantic to the US were began his musical career with the Samba Samba Band and later New York City-based Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers band. Upon his return to the U.K, Babalola later went on to work with notable acts including Prince, Ernest Ranglin, Branford Marsalis, African Jazz All-Stars, Roy Ayers, David Byrne, Damon Albarn, Tony Allen amongst others. In 2006, he won his first Grammy Award for his work on Ali Farka Touré’s In the Heart of the Moon in which he was credited in three tracks. He also won a second Grammy in 2009 for his work on Cassandra Wilson’s 2008 album titled Loverly.

Hakeem Seriki:

Nigerian-American, Hakeem Seriki, better known by his stage name Chamillionaire is a rapper, entrepreneur, and investor from Houston, Texas. Born November 28, 1979, in Washington D.C to a Muslim Nigerian father and an African-American Christian mother. He moved to Houston, Texas at the age of four
He began his career independently with local releases in 2002, including the collaborative album Get Ya Mind Correct with fellow Houston rapper and childhood friend Paul Wall. He signed to Universal Records in 2005 and released The Sound of Revenge under Universal. It included hit singles “Turn It Up” featuring Lil’ Flip and the number-one, Grammy-winning hit “Ridin’” featuring Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The song won the Grammy in 2007 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. It was also nominated for Best Rap Song.

Chamillionaire is also known for his most anticipated Mixtape Messiah series, which ran from 2004 until 2009. He currently serves as the CEO of Chamillitary Entertainment. Chamillionaire was also the founder and an original member of the Color Changin’ Click until the group split in 2005.

Kevin Olusola:

Kevin Olusola, born October 5, 1988, is a Nigerian-American musician, beatboxer, cellist, rapper, record producer, singer, and songwriter. He is also a polyglot.

He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Nigerian-born Oluwole Olusola, a psychiatrist, and Grenadian-born Curline Paul, a nurse.

Olusola’s parents discovered his musical talent when he was six months old and decided to put him in music lessons. He started the piano at age 4, the cello at age 6, and alto sax.

Kevin is best known as the beatboxer of the vocal band Pentatonix. After the group won NBC’s The Sing-Off in 2011, they released five albums, which all charted in the top 5 of the Billboard 200 charts, which sold over 2 million records, and have amassed more than two billion views on their YouTube channel.

His group won the Grammys in 2015 and 2016 for Best Arrangement, Instrumental, or A Cappella. The group also won in 2017 for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for the song Jolene, which featured Dolly Parton.

At Yale, Olusola planned to pursue medicine and finished all his pre-med requirements. He started as an academic music major but decided to switch to East Asian Studies after being introduced to China through a 10-day Chinese government-sponsored trip for 100 Yale students.

Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, a k.a Seal:

He is a British-Nigerian musician, singer, and songwriter who has sold over 20 million records worldwide, with his first international hit song, “Crazy”, released in 1991; his most celebrated song, “Kiss from a Rose”, was released in 1994.

He was born on 19 February 1963 at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, to a Nigerian mother, Adebisi Ogundeji, and an Afro-Brazilian father, Francis Samuel. He was raised by a foster family in Westminster, London. Married the German model Heidi Klum in 2005 but divorced in 2014, after four kids.

He is one of the most decorated musicians with a Nigerian background.

Seal had won three Brit Awards; he won Best British Male in 1992, as well as four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award.

He had been nominated 14 times for Grammys and won four titles.

He won Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1996. He also won Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2011. Last year, his song Standard was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

Cynthia Erivo:

Erivo is a British-Nigerian actress, singer, and songwriter, who played the lead role in the biopic Harriet and was nominated for several awards. Her full name is Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo was born in Stockwell England on 8 January 1987.

Cynthia is multi-talented. Apart from picking awards in theatre and cinema, she also won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 2017 for Colour Purple.

Burna Boy:

With his fusion of dancehall, reggae, Afro-beat, and pop, Burna Boy emerged in the early part of the 2010s as one of Nigeria’s fastest-rising stars.

Burna Boy was born Damini Ogulu in Lagos in 1991. He began making music at ten years old when a fellow classmate at school gave him a copy of the production software FruityLoops. Armed with these means, he began to create his own beats on an old computer. After he graduated, he moved to London to attend university, but he dropped out after two years and moved back to Nigeria. In 2010, the 19-year-old Ogulu traveled to Nigeria’s southern coast, where a mutual acquaintance, producer LeriQ, had some studio space. This marked a period when he began to connect to the music of his native country, having spent most of his youth immersed in American acts like DMX.

After being nominated twice which relates with his “twice as tall” album, the Nigerian current Grammy award-winning singer, Damini Ogulu, a.k.a Burna Boy, has shown he is truly twice as tall with his outing at the 63rd Grammy Awards where he bagged the prize for Best Global Music album.

Wizkid:

Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun (born 16th July 1990), known professionally as Wizkid (sometimes stylized as WizKid, Wizzy, or Starboy), is a Nigerian singer and songwriter. One of Africa’s biggest artists, Wizkid is the most decorated Nigerian artiste ever (the most decorated African internationally), and one of the most revolutionary Afro-pop artists of the modern era. He began recording music at the age of 11 and managed to release a collaborative album with the Glorious Five, a group he and a couple of his church friends formed. Wizkid signed a record deal with Empire Mates Entertainment (E.M.E) in 2009. He rose to prominence after releasing “Holla at Your Boy”, the lead single from his debut studio album Superstar (2011).

Wizkid won the Best Music Video for his song with Beyoncé; Brown Skin Girl, from ‘Lion King: The Gift’ album. The ‘Ojuelegba’ singer bagged the most-covet music award on Sunday night for his contribution to Beyonce’s hit song – ‘Brown Skin Girl’.