Grammy Awards: How Angelique Kidjo rose above Nigeria's sentiment for Burna Boy

Angelique Kidjo has won the Best World Music Album category at the 62nd Grammy Awards ceremony beating Nigeria's Burna Boy and others.

Weeks before the event and when the nominees were announced to include Burna Boy, it was almost as if other musicians in the categories didn't exist to Nigerians.

The saddest part is that many Nigerians totally ignored the veteran called Angelique Kidjo and treated her as if she was no competition at all. They failed to even take a look into her history to even see that she has won that category once and the Best Contemporary World Music Album category twice, making it three Grammy Awards on her shelf.

To them, as long as Burna Boy is touted as a new face in Afrobeats by some UK and American tabloids, he's definitely going to win the Grammy. As long as he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, appearance that can be bought, then he's good to win the award.

Not to say Burna Boy didn't work hard to get to where he got, but not considering Angelique Kidjo is the reason why many Nigerians already congratulated him as the winner before the night of the event. This led to so many heartbreaks when he wasn't announced the winner.

If they had known that Angelique Kidjo performed at world class events like Armistice Day commemorations, which had world leaders like Trump, Putin, Macron etc watching her,they won't have put their love for Burna Boy's youthful music above that of class. A glimpse at Angelique Kidjo's Instagram page shows the kind of events she performs at which are of class.

One good lesson learnt is that Nigerian music has to pay closer attention to live performers, not those who jump about on stage while the microphone is as good as off. Burna Boy did well to get to where he got. Sadly, it will take a long while before someone from Nigeria's mainstream music gets there again.