Meet Sikiru Adepoju and Lekan Babalola, the two Nigerian Grammy Award winners Burna Boy is hoping to emulate.
Nigerian music fans most likely won’t be that concerned about the Grammy Awards if no Nigerian Artiste was nominated but with Burna Boy and Wizkid listed in two categories of the awards, fans are eagerly anticipating that at least one of them, most likely Burna Boy will bring the award home.
Burna Boy will join Sikiru Adepoju and Lekan Babalola in the list of Grammy Award-winning Nigerians if he wins the category for the Best World Music which eluded him in the last award.
Who is Sikiru Adepoju
Born on the 10th of November, 1950, Sikiru Adepoju is a recording artist and percussionist who is versed in the genre of World music as well as African sounds. He is a multi-talented instrumentalist whose creative ingenuity attracted veteran drummer Mickey Hart.
He became a Grammy Award winner in 1991 as part of
Mickey Hart’s group Planet Drum, whose title album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
He and Mickey Hart’s group became the first recipients of the then newly-created Best Contemporary World Music category.
Sikiru Adepoju continued to feature regularly with the music group and he became a second-time recipient alongside the group in 2009 when the group’s Global Drum Project won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 51st annual Grammy Awards.
He has featured in a rich collection of Discography some of which include; The Rhythm Devils Concert Experience (2009) with Rhthym Devils, Mysterium Tremendum (2012) and Superorganism (2013) with Mickey Hart Band as well as RAMU (2017) – Micky Hart.
Lekan Babalola
Lekan Babalola was born on the 15th of May 1960 in Lagos and he began to play the Congo at a very tender age.
He began his career with the Samba Samba Band before joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers band in New York. Lekan Babalola perfected playing the Bongo drums and performing jazz music.
He later returned to the United Kingdom where the world with notable acts like Branford Marsalis, Tony Allen among others.
Lekan Babalola became the first Nigerian to win the Grammy Award for his works in Ali Farka Touré’s In the Heart of the Moon where three tracks were credited to him. In 2008, he also won another Grammy Award for his work in Cassandra Wilson’s Lovely album.
He has seven albums credited to his name since he began his professional career in 1983. Some of his contemporaries include the late Fela Kuti, Ali Farke Toure, and Cassandra Wilson.
