Leadnaija
The Grammy Awards have come and gone. Once again, the artiste who brought it back home to Nigeria, Temilade Openiyi, did so via an Afrobeats song, ‘Love Me Jeje’.
Tems’ genre, Afrobeats, is an invention of the Lukumi Yoruba people of Nigeria, and even the title of her Grammy-winning song contains a Lukumi word. Jeje means gently or softly.
It is no coincidence that ALL Nigeria’s Grammy Award winners are either wholly or partly of Yoruba origin, including:
Sade Adu (1986), Babatunde Olatunji (1991), Sikiru Adepoju (1991) and Seal (1996), Burna Boy (2021), Wizkid (2021), Temilade Openiyi AKA Tems (2023).
And then Burna Boy (2021) is partly Yoruba.
Twice would be a coincidence. But this many times is now considered a pattern.
Another pattern would be that all of these Nigerian Grammy awardees always associate positively with their country and speak well of Nigeria.
Some may not understand that the Recording Academy of the United States, which owns and organises the Grammy Awards, uses this platform to promote fraternal relationships between the United States and other nations.
The Recording Academy of the United States is strongly linked to U.S. intelligence agencies. I do not want to discuss this further.
That being their agenda, they are most unlikely to give the award to people who speak negatively of their country, people and flag.
Think about it logically.
The hottest musical genre on Earth right now is Afrobeats. Amapiano does not even come close. Now, if you were the Recording Academy of the United States and could not control Afrobeats because you do not own it, you would want to do the next best thing: to influence it.
And how would you be able to influence it if you give a Grammy to a person whose relationship to the land of Afrobeats is, at best, tenuous?
These fellows are sophisticated thinkers and savvy businesspeople.
They are thinkers. The best they could do to such a person is dangle the awards at them and bait them to struggle for them, knowing that in doing so, they would be both validating and marketing the Grammy Awards, which makes much of its money by selling TV broadcasting rights.
The only African ever given a Grammy in defiance of their government and nation was Mariam Makeba, who won the Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1966 because the Lyndon B. Johnson administration was vehemently against Apartheid and worked to distance the United States from South Africa.
LBJ had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation and discrimination, and he wanted to send a strong message to Apartheid South Africa. Thus, his administration worked with the Recording Academy of the United States to honour Makeba to spite the Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd government in South Africa.
But today, Nigeria and West Africa are facing a challenge from recalcitrant nations that have forged an alliance with Russia and have begun to make wild accusations against our government and leaders. These nations are under harsh military rule and recently had some success embedding their agents in Nigeria, who flew Russian flags during the Days of Rage protest promoted by Omoyele Sowore.N..>>Don’t Miss Out! CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING>>>>>
If you have a wide platform and use it to denigrate Nigeria at a time when some West African nations are working to undermine Nigeria and ignite an undemocratic regime change, who do you think you are wittingly or unwittingly working for?
Why do you think Bob Marley, as great as he was, never got even a Grammy nomination in his lifetime?
Source: Reno Omokri
