Multi-award-winning Nigerian musician Tems, Sunday made history in her career after she won her first Grammy Award at the 65th edition of the U.S. awards ceremony that is focused on recognizing outstanding contributions to the global music industry.
The 27-year-old west African was listed as a winner under the Best Melodic Rap Performance for the song "Wait For U," where she was featured by multi-award-winning hip-hop artists Future and Drake.
Atl Jacob, the producer for the award-winning song was in attendance of the ceremony and accepted the award on behalf of Future, Drake, and Tems.
“My brother Future could not be here right now, but he will probably pull up a little later and he is definitely grateful for all of this,” said Jacob, adding, “I want to thank you all.”
Multi-award-winning South African musicians, Zakes Bantwini, Nomcebo Zikode and Wouter Kellerman were the other three African acts to walk away with a Grammy on Sunday evening.
The South African musicians won an award for their song titled "Bayethe," which was placed under the Best Global Music Performance category, where they were nominated alongside musical giants from the continent such as Nigeria's Burna Boy and Uganda's Eddy Kenzo.
“This is such a beautiful moment on the road to sharing South African music and culture,” said Kellerman, as he accepted the Grammy.
“Thank you Nomcebo and Zakes for your incredible creativity,” he added.
Zakes Bantwini echoed Kellerman’s gratitude.
“This moment right here is for everybody who is in Africa and proves that every dream is valid,” said the 42-year-old multi-award-winning singer and record producer.
“I want to say thank you very much to the Academy and to each and every one of you, especially those in the ghettos and villages, anything is possible,” he added.
Nomcebo Zikode opened her acceptance speech by singing her internationally renowned song titled "Jerusalema" where she was featured by Master KG.
“Thank you so much to God because I once gave a song to the world that took the world by storm, but I didn’t get this award and he then said don’t worry my daughter, I will give you Bayethe,” said Zikode.
“Your support is amazing and thank you so much to my team,” she added.
Mike Hove compiled this report. Some of the information came from the Grammy Awards website.
