Why Burna Boy Should Boycott The Grammy - Editorial

Forum 3 years ago

Why Burna Boy Should Boycott The Grammy - Editorial

In 2015, Ayo 'Wizkid' Balogun boycotted the BET Awards after being nominated as the BET International Act: Africa nominee. The Starboy Entertainment boss who is the most awarded (2) and most nominated (4) artist in that category prior to its dissolution refused to show up for the award agitating that he deserves to receive the award in the main event and not at the pre-show.

He later tweeted, " I don't post about the nomination or talk about awards cos I don't really care to be honest. Just a bunch of peeps putting together a show!"

This led to him not winning the award in 2015 and also for BET to scrap the BET International Act: Africa to be scrapped out totally given room for Davido and Burna Boy to win the awards in 2018. 2019 and 2020. Davido won the award in 2018 and Burna Boy won it consecutively in 2019 and 2020 and they both received the award at the main stage which gave room for Burna Boy's mum to give the famous speech saying "Remember that you were Africans before you became anything else.”

That's the impact Wizkid's selfless act brought for Afrobeat and our quest to dominate the world.

Remember in 2019when Burn Boy and Mr Eazi were the only Africans enlisted to perform at the Coachella. Despite being celebrated all over Africa, Burna Boy expressed dissatisfaction with the listing saying his name was written with tiny fonts which aren't right for an artist of his kind. The popular Nigerian star took it out on Coachella and her organizers on social media.

Burna Boy who is inarguably one of the biggest artists from Africa believed he deserved more respect from Coachella with regards to how to write his name on the e-flyers. This was simply the incident that led to his fourth studio Grammy-nominated album African Giant.

A year after bagging his first Grammy award nomination, Burna Boy has bagged yet another Grammy Award for World Best Album with the release of his fifth studio album Twice as Tall. The Nigerian pop star has also been enlisted as one of those to perform at the event only for his name to be taken down and then added to those performing at the pre-show event. The show will be held on Monday, March 15, 2021.

With Burna Boy performing at the forthcoming event, Afrobeat will still continue to be a second-degree genre in world music which shouldn’t be so. Africa the second largest continent in the world and having Afrobeat the most popular musical genre in the continent being downgraded this way isn’t good for the genre.

Burna Boy boycotting the award address this issue and even push Grammy organizers to launch an Afrobeat best album, best song, and other song categories going forward.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts below