Ghanaian-American musician Amaarae, has recently voiced her displeasure with the Grammy Awards for lumping all African music genres into a single category.
In a recent interview with Metro TV, Amaarae expressed her disapproval of the Recording Academy’s decision, stating that it is reductive and it ignores the wide range of significant contributions made by African musicians to the world music industry.

“The idea of an African category is great in practice, but I think it is reductive. There are too many categories to just be placed under an umbrella of African music,” she said.
According to Amaarae, songs like ‘calm down remix’ by Rema featuring Selena Gomez and ‘last last’ by Burna Boy should have the chance to compete with categories that corresponds to their music genres and styles and rather not be limited to the African category.

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“So, I feel like a record like [Rema’s] ‘Calm Down’ with the remix with Selena Gomez, that should be able to compete in pop categories [at the Grammys],” Amaarae explained, “I feel like [Burna Boy’s] ‘Last Last’ should be able to compete in hip-hop, RnB or pop categories and not be relegated to just the African category because that’s reductive of the works that [African] artists have done to break boundaries,”she added.