Why is the Grammy so important to any artistes

The Nigeria music industry went in awe on Sunday night after the announcement of the victory of two of its sons, Burna and Wizkid in the Grammy Award. However, one of the biggest controversies about the Grammy Awards is why is it so important, whether they measure an artist, song or album’s quality, market share or some combination of the two.

Although the voting members of  The Recording Academy are instructed to consider only quality, there are reasons to believe that the selections are made according to more amorphous criteria.

While there’s no reason to challenge the honesty of the process, it’s safe to assume that it pits commercial interests against cultural ones. It’s also reasonable to assume that, like all electorates, Grammy voters are self-interested and inclined to vote in ways that might financially benefit them.

Following this, I definitely think there are two categories of musicians. I think there’s a category of musicians for whom the Grammy is the end goal to win that kind of critical acclaim, as well as claim from fellow industry people, that’s what they’re working towards.

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And also I think there’s a category of artists for whom the Grammy is incidental. I think you see this a lot in the hip-hop space where a lot of people in the hip-hop industry don’t necessarily feel like the Grammys best represent what’s going on. So for them, if they win that’s nice, but if they don’t they’re not seeing it as any kind of a shock to their careers.

I think Burna Boy falls in the former, where a majority of his songs have been glorifying his keen interest in the award. Although, I can’t say, with his commitment to good music, that he will stop at this. Rather I think he will push more effort to achieve more of the award.

Wizkid on the other hand as proved that he is not the award frick, as the announcement of the achievement did not push a post from him since Sunday. In his major interviews, he, however, proclaimed that winning award generally do not frick him rather making good music.

Davido too should not be “a bad boy” for not winning the Grammy, our taste for the arts and culture, for the tunes, sound and rhythm defer.

However, for the sake of good music, for the art and culture, if the Grammy, which is award-winning, moves you very much, then I see nothing bad with that. All you have to do as an artist is to improve your music according to the criteria of the award.

READ ALSO: Fans Celebrate Davido more than they celebrate Wizkid, Burna boy over Grammy win

On the other hand, if you love making good music that your audience will connect with, then I see nothing bad also applying to winning an award. It all join. Award doesn’t make you, rather elevate you to elite status in your career. And if you are not careful with the process, you may lose your bearing after the award

Meanwhile, many artists and critics have knocked the Grammys for being a purely money-making enterprise, with little relationship to artistic accomplishment.  Moreso, there is a wide lamentation that the prize is chosen not by a vote of hundreds of industry professionals but by a small panel of experts: musicians, presenters, music journalists and critics.

The way you get a Grammy, there’s a process where they’ve got the nomination categories and they send it out to a panel of the voting constituency. The nominations are then figured out that way, and then the voting constituency gets the final breakout.

In conclusion, winning an award I think is a personal thing for the artiste; every artiste have what moves them to achieve greatness, and I guess this should not be heavily criticised.

At times, we should learn to judge a work of art not by the artiste ways of life but by what they’ve produced.  Although it doesn’t work always, to judge a work of art in isolation from the artiste, I think we should learn it.