…Michelle Obama wins
Burna Boy who had Nigeria buzzing after being nominated for the Grammy Awards in the World Best Music Album category has lost to Beninese singer-songwriter, Angelique Kidjo.
The Grammy Award for Best World Music Album is an honour presented to recording artists for quality albums in the world music genre.
Angelique Kidjo beat Burna Boy, Altin Gün, Bokanté & Metropole Orkest Conducted By Jules Buckley, Nathalie Joachim & Spektral Quartet to win the award.
This is her fourth Grammy awards after nine nominations, first of which came in 1995. She won in 2007 for the Best Contemporary World Music. She also picked a Grammy each in the Best World Music Album category 2014 and 2015 for the albums Wins and Sings respectively.
Apart from winning, Angelique Kidjo also performed during the pre-telecast segment of the ceremony on Sunday evening.
Kidjo is noted for her diverse musical influences and creative music videos. She is fluent in five languages: Fon, French, Yorùbá, Gen (Mina), and English.
African Giant is Burna Boy’s fourth studio album. It was released on July 26, 2019, features Kidjo on the song “Different”.
The album also has guest appearances from Zlatan, Jorja Smith, Jeremih, Serani, M.anifest, Damian Marley, Future and YG.
African Giant was ranked at number 63 on Vice’s list of the 100 Best Albums of the 2010s.
Also, former American First Lady Michelle Obama has won a Grammy award in the Spoken Word Album category.
Obama won the award for the audio version of her memoir Becoming.
The book has now sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
The hardcover edition of the book sold more copies than any other book published in the United States in 2018, according to NDP BookScan data.
Being published in 31 languages, the memoir is also a bestseller in Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, Finland, South Africa and Taiwan, among other countries.
Scheduled printing runs mean there will be at least 3.4 million copies of the hardcover edition in print in Canada and United States.
America’s first African American first lady and wife of the first black US president is wildly popular at home and abroad, loved for her warm personality, intelligence and women’s activism.
In the book, she writes that she can “never forgive” Donald Trump for questioning her husband’s US citizenship, accusing him and other “birthers” of putting her family at risk.
She also digs into personal issues, detailing a miscarriage, conceiving her daughters Malia, 20, and Sasha, 17, by in-vitro fertilization and marriage counselling.
While some Democrats would love to see her dive into politics and run for president, she has shot down any suggestion of being interested.
While the precise terms of the book deal were not released, the Financial Times reported that the Obamas were paid more than $65 million for global rights to twin memoirs about their time in the White House.
Barack Obama is already a bestselling author, chalking up “Dreams From My Father” in 2004 and “The Audacity of Hope” in 2008.
