Fela Kuti Receives Historic Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as First African
Late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti makes history as the first African artist to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, nearly three decades after his 1997 passing at age 58 – a watershed moment in global recognition of African musical genius.
The Recording Academy confirmed the posthumous honour ahead of Saturday’s ceremony, where Nigeria’s Burna Boy competes for Best Global Music Album. Established in 1963 when Bing Crosby became the inaugural recipient, the lifetime award now positions Kuti among 2024 honorees including Carlos Santana and Chaka Khan.
“Fela has been in the hearts of the people for such a long time. Now the Grammys have acknowledged it, and it’s a double victory,” his musician son Seun Kuti told the BBC ahead of receiving the award on his father’s behalf in Los Angeles.
Rikki Stein, the Afrobeat legend’s longtime manager, described the accolade as “better late than never” during his BBC interview. This recognition arrives two years after the Grammys launched its inaugural Best African Performance category – reflecting shifting industry priorities following Afrobeats’ global ascent.
While celebrating this milestone, custodians of Kuti’s legacy stress that his 50-album career transcended musical innovation. The politically combustible icon endured military raids, imprisonment, and state-sponsored violence for critiquing governmental corruption through scathing lyrical commentary that still resonates continent-wide.
Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s revolutionary sound itself carries deep Ghanaian roots. The groundwork for Afrobeat was laid during his formative years absorbing Accra’s highlife scene in the 1960s, synthesizing the genre’s melodic sophistication with Yoruba rhythms and jazz sensibilities into a lasting pan-African musical language.
This sonic fusion was profoundly shaped during Kuti’s time in Ghana during the 1950s and 1960s, where he immersed himself in the highlife scene under tutelage of orchestrators like E.T. Mensah and Pat Thomas. He absorbed their melodic guitar lines, horn arrangements and dancefloor sensibilities, later meshing them with Yoruba rhythms, American jazz and politically charged Yoruba-English pidgin lyricism – birthing what would become Afrobeat’s revolutionary syntax.
The musician’s resistance ethos faced its ultimate test after releasing 1977’s ‘Zombie,’ whose withering military critique triggered a violent raid on his Kalakuta Republic commune. Soldiers burned the compound, brutalized residents, and fatally injured his activist mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti – a tragedy that inspired his defiant protest anthem ‘Coffin for Head of State’ delivered with his mother’s coffin to government offices.
Seun Kuti reveals how his father extended this philosophy of radical authenticity into parenting. “Fela never made me feel like I was a child,” he recalls. “He always reminded us he was in service to others more than himself.” Even minor infractions carried lessons, like docked pocket money for using familial nicknames instead of addressing him by name.
Ghana’s creative imprint extends beyond sound to visual identity through artist Lemi Ghariokwu, who crafted 26 of Fela’s iconic album covers between 1974-1993. Meanwhile, contemporary custodians like Idris Elba continue amplifying his legacy through vinyl reissues and global advocacy – calling him “Africa’s Frank Sinatra.”
As Fela’s estate prepares to collect his historic Grammy honor this weekend, Ghanaian musicians reflect on their foundational contribution. His Lifetime Achievement Award serves not just Nigerian pride, but West Africa’s collective musical heritage – a belated recognition that highlife’s DNA pulses through Afrobeat’s defiant heartbeat.
Image Source: MYJOYONLINE
