Tyla emerges as sole African winner at 66th Grammys

The category was introduced ahead of the 66th edition of music’s biggest night, held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, US, on 5 February as part of a larger set of updates and amendments aimed at making the awards process “more fair, transparent and accurate.”

The songstress fended off competition from Nigerian stars Burna Boy, Davido, Asake, Olamide and Ayra Starr to clinch the award. It also marks her first-ever Grammy gong.

“I never thought I’d say, ‘I won a Grammy at 22 years old’,” she said in her acceptance speech. “If you don’t know me, my name is Tyla. I’m from South Africa and last year God decided to change my whole life, so thank you so much to God. Thank you to my team, my family. I know my mother’s crying somewhere in here.

“Thank you to the Recording Academy for this category. It’s so important and I know I’m forgetting some things, but I won a Grammy! Thank you, thank you!”

Meanwhile, Burna Boy, who led Africa’s contingent heading into the awards with four nominations, failed to bag a win. In addition to losing the Best African Music category to Tyla, he missed out on the Best Global Music Performance Award, losing to ‘Pashto’ by Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia, and on the Best Global Album Award, which went to Shakti’s ‘The Moment’. He also lost in the Best Melodic Rap Performance category to Lil Durk’s ‘All My Life’ featuring J Cole.

On the night, Burna Boy, Africa’s sole performer at the awards, rendered a medley of his hits ‘On Form’, ‘City Boy’ and ‘Sittin on Top of the World’ with US popstars Brandy and 21 Savage.