Tems' Grammy Nominations Can Help Us Reconsider How We View Afrobeats Artists

“I want to make music that makes me pull my heart out, and if I can’t do that, I don’t want anything,” she said. “For me, even right now, I’m chasing a frequency. There’s artists I’ve loved all my life, that when they reach a certain stage, the music loses that frequency, it loses that touch they had. And I always wondered why.”

In an industry where artists have been fighting to be removed from the catch-all Afrobeats category, owing to claims that it doesn’t accurately capture the diversity of their sound, Tems has managed, in her branding, storytelling and the music she makes, to stick with a mostly R&B sound and insist on it.

The reward for taking that lane has now arrived as a nomination in The Grammy Awards’ R&B category without a feature from a Western artist. Tems was nominated for Best R&B Song alongside SZA, Kehlani, and Muni Long, artists firmly established in the R&B sphere.

The nomination is monumental for various reasons; for one, it proves that African artists possess versatility and should they try, can veer into non-African genres and find success. However, the politics of that and what it says about what value is attached to staunchly identifying as an African artist is a separate conversation. Still, this nomination, like Burna Boy’s 2024 nod for Best Melodic Rap Performance, also proves that the easiest way to be heard is to make the kind of music you say you make.

Sticking to your guns

In March of this year, Nigerian superstar Wizkid went on a social media rant, openly removing himself from the Afrobeats umbrella. Saying simply that he “makes all sorts of music.”

His argument, which focused on the rejection of labels, made a case for African artists to move into and be taken seriously in mainstream, Western-adjacent genres.

“I don’t want these labeled just Afrobeats. That’s like saying every American artist makes rap. That’s stupid. This is why no matter how good or amazing the music we make be it RnB or whatever other genre, we all get nominated in one Africa category or the other,” he wrote on his Instagram story.

It’s a pretty straightforward position. African artists, owing to increased exposure to a variety of music and influenced by their unique experiences have the privilege to dabble in a variety of genres and should be recognized for that skill. Many Afrobeats artists, from Burna Boy to Wizkid, Rema and Ayra Starr have seamlessly featured on or even made rap or classic pop songs without any trouble — something that isn’t always possible for their Western counterparts.

So the argument that this multiplicity deserves to be seriously considered in mainstream categories is necessary. And with the newest nomination for Tems, who was also nominated for Best African Music Performance and Best Global Music Album (two categories in which African artists are typically nominated), this is proof that it is possible to see the varied influences behind Afrobeats and reward it accordingly.

What does this mean for the future of the genre?

With Burna’s nomination in the rap category in the 2024 Grammys, and established artists vying for these categories, the biggest lesson to be taken is that while Afrobeats is multidimensional, it must also mean something to the people who have most benefitted from its newly acquired cultural currency. Achieving a spot on the global music stage shouldn’t come at the expense of locally developed sounds or the neglect of a hard-won musical identity.

Without this intentionality, and as the world continues to evolve, African artists might find themselves without a local musical parlance, or a way to articulate and differentiate themselves. Street pop genres might be shelved under rap or hip-hop with the right insistence. Afropop thrust into the Pop music category. The nuances and experimentation possible under the Afrobeats umbrella may be lost to the dictates of ‘mainstream’ genres, genres with established rules and expectations, and genres that may be unable to accommodate the rule-breaking energy at the heart of Afrobeats.

As we consider this growing entry into the mainstream, will it be enough to simply be a Nigerian artist, urban, fully assimilated into Western definitions of genre and without any musical heritage of one’s own? If Tems’ nomination tells us anything, it’s that African artists must insist on their multiplicity, instead of ditching one for the other. This not only curtails the confusion around the meaning or accuracy of Afrobeats as a genre capable of seamlessly blending varying influences, instead, it affirms it.