Nigerian-Born Artistes Who are Grammy Awards Recipients
With a total of no less than 84 categories celebrating the best of pop, rock, R&B, jazz, classical, spoken words, musical theater, music for visual media, amongst others, thousands of artistes across the globe have won Grammy Awards since its debuted in 1957.
In the past years, Nigerians have not only been nominated for the Grammys, but are also recipients of the prestigious awards.
And as the 63rd edition of the awards show draws closer, eelive.ng listed below the Nigerian-Born artistes that have won the awards:
Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, a k.a Seal
He is a British-Nigerian musician, singer, and songwriter. He has sold over 20 million records worldwide, with his first international hit song, Crazy, which was released in 1991. His most celebrated song, Kiss from a Rose was released in 1994.
He was born on 19 February 1963 at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, to Nigerian mother, Adebisi Ogundeji, and Afro-Brazilian father, Francis Samuel. He was raised by a foster family in Westminster, London.
Seal married a German model, Heidi Klum in 2005 but divorced in 2014, after four kids.
He is regarded as one of the most decorated musicians with Nigerian background.
He is a recipient of Brit Awards, Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award.
Out of his 14 Grammy nominations, Seal won four of them.
Sikiru Adepoju
Sikiru Adepoju, born on 10 November 1950 in Eruwa, Oyo State, is a percussionist and recording artiste from Nigeria, primarily in the genres of traditional African music and world music. He plays a variety of instruments and styles.
Before leaving for the United States in 1985, Adepoju was a member of juju music maestro Ebenezer Obey’s Inter Reformers Band. In the US, the ‘drummer boy’ joined O. J. Ekemode’s Nigerian All-Stars, and three months later met Babatunde Olatunji.
He became an integral part of Olatunji’s Drums of Passion, and through Olatunji met Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.
He was part of Mickey Hart’s group Planet Drum, whose title album won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 1991, which was the first year there was a Grammy in that category. He was also part of Mickey Hart’s latest group Global Drum Project, whose title album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 51st annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles two years ago.
Lekan Babalola
Lekan Babalola, born in 1960, is a Nigerian jazz percussionist and musician. He began his career with the playing of conga in Lagos, Nigeria. He has released seven albums and jointly won two Grammy Awards.
After primary and secondary education in Agege Lagos and Iwo in Oyo states, he left Nigeria for England in 1980 to study automobile engineering at the Chelsea College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering.
He however dropped the engineering programme for music and later enrolled at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, where he studied filmmaking. He later went to to the Northern Film School for a master’s degree.
After crossing the Atlantic to the US, he began his musical career with the Samba Samba Band and later New York City-based Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers band, where he perfected playing the Bongo drums and performing jazz music. Upon his return to the U.K, Babalola later went on to work with notable acts including Prince, Ernest Ranglin, and Branford Marsalis. In 2006, he won his first Grammy Award for his work on Ali Farka Touré’s In the Heart of the Moon, in which he was credited in three tracks. He also won his second Grammy in 2009 for his work on Cassandra Wilson’s 2008 album, Loverly.
Hakeem Seriki
Hakeem Seriki, better known by his stage name Chamillionaire is a rapper, entrepreneur, and investor from Houston, Texas. He was born November 28, 1979, in Washington D.C to a Muslim Nigerian father and an African-American Christian mother. He moved to Houston, Texas at the age of four
He began his career independently with local releases in 2002, including the collaborative album Get Ya Mind Correct with fellow Houston rapper and childhood friend Paul Wall. He signed to Universal Records in 2005 and released The Sound of Revenge under the imprint. The album include hit singles like Turn It Up featuring Lil’ Flip and the number-one, Grammy-winning hit Ridin featuring Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The song won the Grammy in 2007 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. It was also nominated for Best Rap Song.
He currently serves as the CEO of Chamillitary Entertainment.
Kevin Olusola
Kevin Olusola, born October 5, 1988 is a Nigerian-American musician, beatboxer, cellist, rapper, record producer, singer, and songwriter. He is also a polyglot.
He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Nigerian-born Oluwole Olusola, a psychiatrist, and Grenadian-born Curline Paul, a nurse.
Olusola’s parents discovered his musical talent when he was six months old and decided to put him in music lessons. He started the piano at age 4, the cello at age 6, and alto sax
Olusola is best known as the beatboxer of the vocal band Pentatonix. After the group won NBC’s The Sing-Off in 2011; they released five albums, which all charted in the top 5 of the Billboard 200 charts, and have sold over 2 million records…
His group won the Grammys in 2015 and 2016 for Best Arrangement, Instrumental, or ACappella. The group also won in 2017 for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for the song Jolene, which featured Dolly Parton.
Written by Oluwasola Oluwatobi
