By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Caption: Fela Kuti by Adrian Boot (Urban Image) BBC Plimsoll Productions.
Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti has become the first African artist to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, honoured posthumously in Los Angeles for his music and political resistance.
Family accepted the award for the legendary Kuti, who died in 1997, during the 2026 Special Merit Awards, which took place in Los Angeles on Saturday, January 31st, the night before the main Grammys ceremony.
Three of his children accepted the award for Kuti, introduced as a “producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw and the father of Afrobeat.” He’s the first African musician to get the award.
“Thank you for bringing our father here,” Femi Kuti said. “It’s so important for us, it’s so important for Africa, it’s so important for world peace and the struggle.”
In the 1970s, Fela the multi-instrumentalist and full-of-life performer invented Afrobeat: a mixture of jazz, funk and African rhythms.
That laid the groundwork for Afrobeats, a later genre that has attracted a global audience by blending traditional African rhythms with contemporary pop sounds, with its roots in Nigeria.
Two years ago the Grammys introduced the category of Best African Performance in 2024 and it has been dominated by Afrobeats artists, especially from Nigeria.
Of the five nominees for the Best African performance this year, three are Nigerian Afrobeats singers, after another Nigerian, Tems, won last year.
Fela was bestowed the honor alongside other international heavyweights, including Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, and Paul Simon.
President Bola Tinubu has paid tribute to Kuti, describing the honour as a deserved global salute to an icon whose music and ideals reshaped generations.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the President said the award appropriately celebrates a cultural giant whose artistic brilliance and fearless expression elevated African music and identity on the world stage.
Tinubu noted that Fela was far more than a musician, portraying him as a relentless advocate for social justice, a voice of resistance and a revolutionary cultural force whose lyrics and performances challenged oppression, confronted injustice and awakened social consciousness across continents.
“The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award affirms Fela’s foundational role in African music and his lasting impact on global popular culture,” Tinubu said.