The Grammy nominations for 2025 are out, and once again, as far as Nigeria is concerned, music of Lukumi Yoruba origin has dominated the nominations.
Asake, the rave of the moment, is nominated for the first time, as is Yemi Alade. Omo Baba Olowo earns his second nomination and his arch rival, Wizkid, is also nominated.
Temilade Openiyi, AKA Tems, attempted to steal my sobriquet, Table Shaker, by smashing the table with her three nominations. She is also the first African artiste to top the Billboard Hot 100.
Rema and Burna are also nominated. This does not break the pattern because they were nominated based on their strengths as Afrobeats singers. That genre of music is unapologetically Lukumi Yoruba (though it is not impossible that some notorious culture vultures will try to revise the history and lay claim to originating Afrobeats).
We might view these achievements as small things, but we should not underestimate the big differences small things make.
When I first went to school in England, Jamaicans had a reputation for being prejudiced against Africans, especially Nigerians. You meet them, and they just resented you at first sight. It could be a significant culture shock because you expect to be warmly received by your own kind.
At that time, if you wanted to provoke a Jamaican and just any random Afro-Caribbean, you called them an African. They would get angry because, to them, that was an insult.
But all that has changed. I was in Jamaica in September this year, and believe it or not, two of the most popular things in Jamaica are Afrobeats and Nollywood. I did a video with my taxi driver that went viral. The man grows a third leg at the mention of the name of Ini Edo.
I kid you not. Jamaicans actually know more Nigerian artistes than many Nigerian elites.
Over the years, we have spent over a billion dollars trying to rebrand our image. In the twinkling of an eye, Burna Boy, Davido, Asake, Wizkid, and Olamide, amongst others, have done what billions of dollars could not do for Nigeria.
That is why I keep saying that our citadels of learning should endow research to identify why music of Lukumi Yoruba origin is so powerful that it transcends racial and national barriers.
I watched Asake’s sold-out concert at the O2 Arena and was so impressed by how down to Earth he is in his raw talent. Down to Earth in the sense that this is a Yoruba boy from the trenches, and he does not attempt to hide that. He is so in your face with his Yoruba-ness, and people worldwide love it.
The crowd at the O2 Arena this past Sunday, September 22, 2024, was multiracial, but the music was unabashedly Yoruba. And much as I was entertained, Asake got me thinking.
Wizkid did it. Multiple times. Davido did it. Many times. And now Asake. Why? How?
One of the things we can learn from the recent global stardom of multiple Nigerian artistes, especially music of Yoruba origin, is that though these individuals often have humble backgrounds, they never let their background put their back to the ground. Look at Asake, Wizkid, Kizz Daniel, Yemi Alade, and a host of others.
They sometimes come from places that would have been termed nowhere, but their impact is everywhere. Be inspired by them beyond just music. If they can do it in music, you can do it in business, science, sports, politics, and I would have added movies, but Nigerians are already doing it in film.
We can learn much from the Yorubas culture if we want to succeed as sub-Saharan Africans. Without abandoning their culture and language, they have succeeded globally with skills they acquired locally.
The top Nigerian and African singers are Yoruba. The top Nigerian and indigenous African filmmakers are Yoruba. The only Nigerian Grammy winners are wholly or partly Yoruba. And as an ethnicity, they have won more of that laurel than any other African ethnicity.
For every decade of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation, music of Yoruba origin has dominated our country, and now it is dominating the world.
- Bobby Benson dominated the 60s
- Abami Fela Kuti over dominated the 70s
- King Sunny Ade and Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey dominated the 80s with Fela
- Sir Shina Peters and King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall dominated the 90s.
- Paul Play Dario shared dominance with the Remedies, Plantashun Boiz, and Tuface Idibia in the 2000s
- D’Banj, the Koko Master, shared dominance with PSquare in the 2010s
- Davido, Asake, Olamide, Wizkid, Tems, and Burna Boy (party Lukumi) dominate the here and now.
There is no need to compete with them. For the sake of the progress of Nigeria and Black Africa, let us all cooperate with them and get their secrets of success so we can apply them.
So, again, I call on universities and research institutes to do thorough research into this phenomenon to identify what makes that sub-sector of the music industry so successful so that already established acts can use that knowledge to further crossover, and young upcoming acts can act on it to make inroads into the music industry globally.
Globally, music is a $5 trillion industry. Let us use what we have to corner at least 10% of that bottom line. Oil is a finite resource. Music is infinite. It will take Nigeria more than a century to compete with the military-industrial complexes of the Occident and the Orient. But we have a comparative advantage in music, and we can not just compete, we can also overtake everybody and use that industry to bring the bacon home to Nigeria.
Reno Omokri, is a Gospeller, Deep Thinker, TableShaker, #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, Hodophile. His awards include Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019 an Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.
