Over the past year we have all been plagued by the tune, “Make me sweat, make me hotter make me lose my breath make me water.” This is the chorus to Tyla’s song “Water,” which has effectively taken over the world. While her talent is undeniable, she did not deserve the Grammy for the newly-created category, Best African Music Performance — especially when you compare her achievements to those of her fellow nominees. The only thing that differentiates her from them is that she is conventionally pretty.
Asake’s nomination was anything but a shock to Afrobeat listeners. His songs, “Amapiano,” “Lonely At The Top,” and “Yoga” have topped the charts in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and many other African countries. His performances are electrifying, as he displays a level of musicality unique to only him. Furthermore, his talent led him to make history as the first artist to have ten songs on the Turntable Top 100. In August of 2023, all his hard work paid off when he sold out the O2 arena, joining the ranks of Rihanna, Amy Winehouse, and Beyoncé. With a career that has blossomed so much in the past few years, he was a shoo-in to win Best African Performance of the Year, but he did not. He did, however, beat Tyla out for Best African Performance of The Year at the MOBO awards last week. This leaves me to wonder, what happened at the Grammys?
Davido, another one of the nominees, released his chart-topping song “Unavailable” last year. It has over one billion streams worldwide, and over one million streams daily. Moreover, it came with an adorable dance that took over TikTok for a couple of months. Davido has been in the game for years, starting with his breakout song “Dami Duro,” which took West Africa by storm, all the way to his new album “Timeless,” which has “Unavailable” as a featured single. He laid the tracks for younger Afrobeat artists like Tyla to expand beyond the continent by performing on big stages like the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar and the 23rd Annual BET awards in LA. Davido’s history and cadence as a performer rivals some of the biggest artists in the U.S. like Drake, 21 Savage, and Taylor Swift. There are very few Afrobeat artists who can claim to have the reputation that Davido has worked hard to build, and Tyla is definitely not one of them.
On that note, Tyla is an up-and-coming Afrobeats artist from South Africa whose new song “Water” broke the internet. Two months ago it hit the top 10 on the Billboard 100 and has had everyone in a chokehold ever since. Though the song is brilliant and I would never take that away from her, what launched her into stardom was the TikTok dance that came with it. It had hordes of people pouring water down their backs in the dead cold of winter as they attempted to move their waists like Tyla. She went on to appear on the “Jennifer Hudson Show” and “Tonight With Jimmy Falon,” teaching the hosts her little dance and charming America with a smile and a South African accent. While her accolades are not to be ignored, Tyla winning the award boils down to one thing. She was simply more marketable to the American audience than her fellow nominees. How else could an artist who just broke out beat people like Asake and Davido, people who are arguably better performers and have been in the game for much longer than she has?
To conclude, Tyla’s marketability gave her a head start pushing her in front of people who have been running the race for years. She has raw talent, but in addition to that she is light-skinned and beautiful, and this likely contributed to her TikTok dance going viral. It is much easier to push her to an American audience than Asake or Davido who are darker-skinned and, arguably, not as conventionally attractive. What else could it be but pretty privilege?
Nonetheless, I do not doubt that she will catch up to Davido and Asake’s level of performance and greatness soon and eventually become deserving of the award, it just was not her time yet
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