The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, held on March 14 in Los Angeles, California, was a night to remember for Africa, as Nigerian music phenomenon Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu also known as “Burna Boy” won his first Grammy as a solo artist, making him the first Nigerian to do so and in the process putting the country on the map.
Meet the heavy weights
Burna boy, real name Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu is a Nigerian-British musician, songwriter, rapper, and dancer. A man of very few words, he lets his music do the talking, and it does so in an electrifying way. He is one of Africa’s most famous and well-known musicians, in his words “an African giant”.
On the other hand, starboy Wizkid, whose real name is Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun, is one of Africa’s biggest artists. Wizkid is the most decorated Nigerian artist of all time, the most decorated African artist globally, as well as one of the most innovative Afro-pop artists of the modern era. A Grammy award winner too, for a song featured off a Beyoncé album.
While Nigerian-American musician David Adeleke, better known by his stage name Davido, Baddest, and Omo baba Olowo (OBO), is without a doubt one of Nigeria’s most well-known musicians. Despite only having been in the music business for a short period, has built a reputation for himself as well as put Nigerian music on the chart with his hits.
Notwithstanding all these achievements and numerous awards won amongst them, the rivalry in the Nigerian music industry seems to be strong and thriving with every song that is churned out by these artists as their fans always seem to place them on the same pedestal and at loggerheads with each other.
Combined these 3 heavy weights have a massive cult-like following home and abroad as statistics gotten from their social media platforms show;
Burna boy: Instagram 6.6m, Twitter 5.2m, Youtube 1.84m
Wizkid: Instagram 12.1m, Twitter 8.4m, Youtube 1.72m
Davido: Instagram 19.1m, Twitter 9.2m, Youtube 2.4m
With the 63rd Annual Grammy award edition recognising Burna boy as an outstanding artist and a winner, the tables seemed to have shaken and this has earned him the bragging right of been seen/heard as a general in his field.
Can we all finally agree, the world has realized that there are stunning, creative talents that have been overlooked for way too long and the Grammy won by one of these artist further pushes the bar of comparison with the other 2 recognized names in the Nigerian music industry?
There let’s take a little vote shall we?
One Response
I like all three but since you’ve asked me to choose
Wizzy