Femi Kuti Misses Grammy Award Again

Femi Kuti, Nigeria’s legendary afrobeat musician, has lost at the Grammy Awards for the fourth time. The saxophonist was nominated in the World Music category for his 2013 No Place For My Dream album released under Knitting Factory Records but failed to scoop the award.

Gipsy Kings, a musical group from France and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a male choral group from South Africa, both won the award in a tie.

The award was presented by singer Cynthia Lauper at the 56th Grammy Awards held on 26 January 2014 at the Staples Centre, Los Angeles, California.

Kuti who did not attend the awards was represented by elder sister Yeni Kuti.

“My sister will be in the US to open a documentary on my father at about the same time. To save cost it is best she represents me at the Grammys,” Femi wrote on his Twitter account, @Femiakuti prior to the awards.

In 2003, Femi was first nominated in the World Music category but he lost to Panamanian salsa singer Rubén Blades. Again, in 2010 he was nominated in the same category but lost to US banjo player Bela Fleck. Femi also lost to Malian band Tinariwen in 2011 in the same category.

Femi has been getting loads of encouragement on Twitter.  One of such consolatory tweets came from fr@idowuakindele who tweeted that: “Your nomination is a global acknowledgement of your greatest! Congrats Bro.”

Femi retweeted.:   “Congrats to the winners. The nomination already made my year. Not winning won’t spoil it,” to which Femi retweeted.

Femi also took some time to encourage his fans that were heartbroken that he did not win the award. He tweeted to @AttaAbraham: “Pls don’t be sad there are many reasons to be sad in this life right now just too much suffering of many people.”

—Seun Bisuga