Music Data Base: share minds with artists

The reason why Americans and Europeans hardly respect Africa and our music is because, as Africans, when we look at something from other African countries, instead of seeing a brother growing, we see competition instead.

The Grammy saga has just shown us how Africans are and how we think of each other. We are in a time when music from our continent is buzzing and growing in popularity. I think what we need to do now is push our artists to collaborate more and produce music that adds value to our community. But no, all we want to do is argue all day about why our music is better than that from other African countries.

We've said it, and we'll say it again. The Grammys have been here for more than 66 years, and for 65 of those 66 years, Africans had little or nothing to contribute to the awards, yet it has never been considered w0rthless. The Grammy has been big without us, and it will still be big if they don't nominate Africans because Americans are celebrating it. 

You know what's not big? Our awards. That's because we don't see value in them. We are so focused on seeking validation from outside that we forget awards like the AFRIMAs, Trace Awards and others which were created to celebrate African music from every part of the continent.

The Headies is a Nigerian award, and no matter how we twist it, that award show cannot represent Africa because Nigeria is not the entire continent.

Let's start seeing each other as brothers and celebrate ourselves when we win. Let's add value to our own awards and grow; that is the only way others will respect us.

We Are One.

If you still see music from other African countries as a competition, we say Sh@me on you.