Op-Ed | The Grammys Trap: “Best African Music Performance” Limits African Pop – OkayAfrica

When Tyla won the 2026 Grammy for Best African Music Performance with “PUSH 2 START,” the reaction was immediate and familiar. Too “western,” too “pop,” too “unAfrican.” This backlash reveals less about the South African star and more about the enduring problem of how music from Africa is imagined, marketed, and disciplined on the world stage.

African creativity is still expected to sound ancestral, percussive, earthy, and visibly rooted in tradition to be legible as African at all.

The Colonial Appetite…