On Feb. 5, the Ultra Music Festival announced its second phase lineup for Ultra 2019 taking place March 29–31 at the the historic Virginia Key Beach Park And Miami Maritime Stadium for the first time. Newly announced live headliners include Tom Morello and Gigantic NGHTMRE, the collaboration between Big Gigantic and NGHTMRE. Phase two DJ headliners include Black Coffee, Sven Väth, Eric Prydz as himself and as Cirez D, and Dog Blood, the collaboration between Boys Noize and Skrillex. The first phase lineup was announced last December.

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Moving with the times, Ultra's biggest festival ever boasts seven stages this year. "B2B" sets stand for back-to-back, for example Prydz's Cirez D pseudonym spinning B2B with previously announced DJ Adam Beyer. Black Coffee stood out in 2017 for his work with 61st GRAMMY Awards nominees Drake and Jorja Smith on "Get It Together." Gigantic NGHTMRE have collapsed the collaborators' names together since this past December's combination track "Like That."

Artists added in the "Support" second phase lineup include 3lau, Sam Feldt, Salvatore Ganacci, Getter, Ghastly, Oliver Heldens, Malaa, Nero, Nicky Romero, Sophie, Svdden Death, Tchami, and many more.

Tickets including special packages are available at the Ultra website.

Ultra Music Festival Moves To Bigger, Better Location In Miami For 2019 Event

Before last year, the closest French producer Madeon and Dutch DJ San Holo ever came to collaborating was touring together in 2016. But on Nov. 5, the two dance stars found themselves closing out the 2023 Vision & Colour Music Festival in Wuhan, China, together after a last-minute cancellation from the original headliner — and their unexpected set was so magical, they're bringing their chemistry to Miami's Ultra Music Festival just four months later.

Madeon and San Holo — whose birth names are Hugo Leclercq and Sander van Dijck, respectively — will play a back-to-back set as headliners of Ultra's intimate amphitheater-style Live Stage on March 23. Like their VAC performance, the joint Ultra set will offer hard electronic beats, live mash-ups and fan-favorite cuts from both of their catalogs, curated by each artist in an attempt to impress the other.

"I've noticed a trend in dance music where audiences are attracted to moments — things that feel spontaneous, like back-to-backs that you didn't expect, shows that are announced very late," Madeon tells GRAMMY.com. "There's something about 'You had to be there.' As a performer, I want us to feel that energy."

San Holo echoes, "This all came from spontaneity. As long as we keep that alive, people are going to have an amazing time." 

Ahead of their Ultra set, Madeon and San Holo caught up with GRAMMY.com to hear more about their serendipitous partnership  — and why it's not guaranteed to ever happen again.

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I'm excited that you're bringing this joint effort back. I was so intrigued when you did the set in China. 

Madeon: The way it came about is probably why it ended up being so special. We were both in China playing our respective shows for this festival, VAC. I played Good Faith Forever, Sander played a DJ set hybrid. We were about to fly back, but the headliner that was supposed to close the entire festival was sick. They had this big fireworks show already, a huge production, and then they didn't have an artist. 

They asked us about a back-to-back, and we were like, "Well, that sounds kind of fun." Basically, 24 hours before going on stage, we were like, "We're gonna headline this mega festival and create a whole new show from scratch," which was a little reckless. I think the sleep deprivation and the time zone change probably played a part. 

Sander and I met up in the hotel room and took some big swings. We made a whole new visual show with a black-and-white camera feed. I was on my laptop making visuals on the way to the stage. Sander and I decided to each have succeeding sections, like 15 minutes each. We did not show each other what we were going to play. We're trying to make sure we would impress each other, like a proper back and forth. 

San Holo: The complicated thing is that Madeon is actually on different equipment. He has his own crazy, secret setup that is insane. He's extremely flexible, and I'm on the CDJs [turntables]. It's like trying to get different machines to talk. We have to really pay attention when we transition from our sections, which was really exciting and challenging.

Madeon: For me, the best part is that when you start playing, I know you're gonna play for 10 minutes or so, which is long enough for me to just dance, have fun and get lost in it. Then after 10 minutes, I think, "Okay, where do I take this next?" It feels very celebratory, and most of what Sander played was music I had never heard before. I felt like it was in the audience partying with everybody whenever he dropped something cool, and hopefully vice versa. 

San Holo: Absolutely. That's a fun thing of back-to-backs. You're like, "What is this?" Normally I would go look at the CDJ, but now I had to look over to this laptop machine with your setup. I was like, "Where can I find the song title?"

Madeon: We were supposed to only play an hour or so, and when we were gearing up for the ending, the festival was like "Do you want to play longer?" We ended up playing an extra 40 minutes completely unprepared. It was very magical. 

We had this handheld camera. Whenever he was playing, I was filming him, then whenever I was playing he was filming me. We looked at the footage and saw the way that it looked, and it felt strong and different. It didn't feel like a typical Madeon show or a typical San Holo show. So it felt true to what it was, as far as this spontaneous idea. It was such a special moment, and so unexpected. We didn't know how fun it was gonna be. 

I'm really shocked to hear this happened so last minute. Listening to the set, it felt like you had put so much thought into mixing your styles.

San Holo: I was a little bit scared, to be honest — like, "Is this gonna work?" But that actually made it so fun.

Madeon: I think if it was earlier in my career I would have been more scared, but we both have enough experience to know we can figure it out as DJs. When I do my live show and I'm singing, it's all super rehearsed — and same for you Sander, right? But when I DJ, I don't like to prepare, because otherwise I'm bored. 

This felt doubly exciting. The risk factor is what makes it real. We were there, we took a risk, and there was this magical memory. 

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So you whipped together this wild concept and the wheels didn't fall off mid-set. Going into this Ultra set, is that now part of the parameters of this project? 

Madeon: We're implementing a little surprise in the show, and we're very excited about that. That one is more planned, but it's also spontaneous — you'll see. We want to make sure it's not exactly what we did in China. 

Sander is just going to tell me the opening and closing song of each of his sections, and then it's my job to find the connection between. It's like a puzzle I'm going to solve, but I'm not going to over-prepare.

San Holo: I've got to talk about your setup. I'm jealous of your setup, because it really allows you to be completely free with the key and the BPM tempo. You can just flip it in whatever way you want. 

Madeon: But I'm jealous of your setup, because CDJs are everywhere. It's so convenient. They feel great to use. 

San Holo: It's just harder with CDJs to actually pitch things. You can pitch up tracks, and it's the Ableton algorithm so it still sounds pretty good.

Madeon: That's true. Sander sent me a bunch of his acapella and melodies, and I pitched them to the right key, and then I could play them on the launch pad so I could do mashups live. That's not something you can easily do on CDJ.

San Holo: No. I am a bit more prepared. I want to play some tracks I found from some really small artists, for example. I want to put them in the set because I think this is amazing music. People have to hear this.

Madeon: Well, there's one thing you're gonna have to prepare for a lot, that secret moment. I trust your skill there. 

San Holo: The fact that it's scary is also why it's fun. People will feel that too, in the audience.

Madeon: I love going on stage and not knowing exactly how it's going to go. I feel like my favorite moment of the set is going to be something that I did not expect. Certain shows are very prepared. It feels like performing a recital, but like this feels like going to a party for me. We know we're going to run into cool people and hear cool music, and things are gonna happen that are memorable. 

And you're closing out the Live Stage, which is more intimate than the 200-foot Main Stage or the airport hanger-style Megastructure that hold crowds of thousands.

Madeon: I love that stage, the amphitheater — and we have the honor of headlining it, which we're really proud of. That stage is where you get the most control over the look and feel of your show. When you play the main stage, it's so massive, so it has to be a collaboration between who you are as an artist, and what Ultra is. That's awesome, too, but it's fun for us to do the live stage because we can control a bit more of the experience. 

Are you bringing back the black and white camera?

San Holo: I've got to give a lot of credit to Hugo. He has a huge vision regarding visuals. 

Madeon: You also had some great insight. It's cool we were both willing to do something different than our normal show. We want to make sure that, if people have seen our shows a lot of times before, they feel like this is a different, secret, rare experience.

San Holo: You gotta tell about the logo.

Madeon: When I make music, I have a lot of self-doubt and I can be really nervous and work on songs for years. But when it comes to visuals, I tend to be very radical, cutthroat and confident. I will take a thing and then really double down on it. 

When we first were trying to figure out the visuals, the natural idea was to use half of my visuals and half of Sander's, and this didn't feel right. So, I started making those black-and-white things, and one of the first things I made took Sander's logo and my logo and just overlapped them on top of each other to create this abstract shape. I thought it looked cool and had a good gut feeling about it.

San Holo: The first time I saw the logo I was like, "Wow. That's kind of crazy," but I really love and admire the cutthroat approach. That's easier for me in my music sometimes. 

Madeon: If we had used it just a little bit, it would look like a mistake, but if you just commit to it, like "No, this is it," then people trust you. It's all about confidently committing. In the photos, we ended up really liking how everything looked. Some people in China who were there even got that logo tattooed, so it's one of these things where you have to feel the moment, feel the energy in the air at a given time. Again, I think that's where dance music is at right now. It feels more spontaneous, like you react to the magic in the air, and then go with it. Chase that excitement. 

(L-R) Madeon and San Holo at the 2023 Vision & Colour Festival | Photo: Haley Lan

It fits the way you're approaching the music as well. It's the two of you together and you're giving each other space to exist. It's more than the sum of its parts.

Madeon: I think audience members, one of their favorite parts is being with their friends, and [when] there's a song they love, they look at each other and react. As a solo performer on stage, you don't have that, because you know what you're going to play. But because there's two of us, we get to surprise each other. 

That's why I don't want to know too much about what he's going to play. I know he's made some edits to some of my songs, and I'm going to sample some of his songs too, but I want to surprise each other. I think that magic and that excitement is going to make us DJ better.

To give each other that space requires a lot of trust. Where does that come from?

San Holo: We haven't worked alongside each other a lot. I was on the Porter and Madeon Shelter tour [in 2016], and that was a life-changing experience for me. It's not like we call each other every day. If anything, our friendship is starting to really grow as we're doing the music thing together. I know Hugo has been doing this for a long time, and we trust each other in our professionalism. I made a huge mistake on the China stage. I spun back the wrong CDJ at some point, but we know how to fix it. 

Madeon: Yeah, that's the magic. A few years into doing this, you grow this connection with the audience where they trust you and you trust them. Some of my favorite memories on stage have been things going wrong. At the end of the day, it's not about perfection. It's about memorable, beautiful, joyful moments, and once you trust that, and you know that in your heart, you'll always find the path back to something joyful. 

Is this a collaboration you might continue? Is it too early to say?

Madeon: We're looking at returning to China where this began to do it again. The spirit of it needs to be spontaneous and quick. There's no pressure in trying to build something, but you never know. We might have so much fun [at Ultra] that we want to do it a ton. It's more about what feels right. 

Ultra asking us to do this was unexpected. I thought it was gonna be one-and-done. We accidentally created something other festivals were interested in, and now we get to bring it to the United States exclusively at Ultra. 

You never know. It might be a lot of music, maybe a lot of shows, or not. But I would say that people at Ultra, if they want to see this, they should go — because there's no guarantee.

Music Festivals 2024 Guide: Lineups & Dates For Coachella, Bonnaroo, NOLA Jazz Fest & Much More

By any measure, 2023 was a remarkable year for electronic wunderkind Fred again.. Over 12 whirlwind months, the South Londoner born Fred Gibson accelerated himself from hyped producer to top-line artist, packing festival stages and selling out an eight-night Los Angeles residency.

While this explosive success seemed like it happened overnight, the Fred again.. phenomenon began building in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As dance music continued its evolution away from the more-is-more EDM era, Fred again..'s earnest, deeply personal, yet still danceable productions struck a chord with fans craving connection in lockdown.

In contrast to big-name DJs up high on faraway festival stages, the producer felt endearingly grounded, from the intimacy of his music to the enthusiasm of his social media posts. His polished, wide-ranging sound — which blends influences from pop, UK garage, house, trance, and the post-dubstep of his key influence, Burial — is also deeply rooted in online culture, incorporating snippets and samples taken from FaceTime, YouTube and voice notes.

Fred again..'s reputation as a dance music star for the internet era set the stage for his Boiler Room performance in the summer of 2022, which has racked up 29 million views and climbing. The Boiler Room takeoff was buoyed by his Swedish House Mafia and Future collab, "Turn on the Lights again..," and a host of unreleased heat that materialized on his third album, Actual Life 3.

Building on this powerful momentum, Fred again.. evolved from internet sensation to full-on superstardom in 2023. His year of highs peaked with four nominations at the 2024 GRAMMYs, including the coveted Best New Artist Category — where he's the only dance act.

As Music's Biggest Night draws closer, here are six feats that made Fred again.. dance music's indisputable rookie of the year.

He Found GRAMMYs Glory On His Own Terms

Before breaking out as a solo artist, Fred again.. earned his stripes as a sought-after producer, working alongside everyone from grime luminaries Stormzy and Headie One to pop superstar Ed Sheeran. Fittingly, his first GRAMMY nominations were for work behind-the-scenes on Jayda G's luminescent house anthem "Both Of Us" (Best Dance/Electronic Recording in 2021) and Sheeran's global hit "Bad Habits" (Song Of The Year in 2022).

The 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards mark the first time he's been recognized for his own music. In addition to Best New Artist, the producer is nominated in Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022), and twice in Best Dance/Electronic Recordings for the '90s trance-channeling Romy collab, "Strong" and the bass-heavy "Rumble" with longtime collaborator Skrillex and Flowdan. 

The four nods are a crowning achievement for Fred again.. as a solo artist that recognizes his individual achievements while also celebrating his evergreen talents as a collaborator. 

He Built On Prior Success  

On his first solo album, 2021's Actual Life (April 14 – December 17 2020), Fred again.. reflected the isolation and strangeness of a COVID-19 lockdown by lacing audio clips of his "actual life" into a collage of electronic production. He followed it later that year with Actual Life 2, which used the same format to explore themes of grief and new beginnings with samples collected from his social feeds. 

"Social media is obviously capable of being a really negative thing," he later told NPR. "But it was also very clear to me that it is capable of being a very beautiful thing." 

That year, Fred again.. also released "Marea (We've Lost Dancing)," featuring musings via FaceTime from DJ-producer the Blessed Madonna on the loss of the dance floor community during the pandemic. Distilling the signature Fred again.. joy-meets-melancholy equation into a cathartic house package, the track became an unlikely lockdown anthem. In 2022, Fred again.. made his Coachella debut with a full live show, soundtracking sunset in the Mojave tent for a tightly packed crowd. 

Coming a few months after Coachella, Fred again..'s Boiler Room set — from his hometown of London, no less — was perfectly timed to send him stratospheric. Over a tight hour, his hybrid DJ-live set showcased his next-level skills on the Maschine+ drum machine/sampler and previews of new music that fans cut into clips and dissected online. Throughout it all, the producer projected a beaming, can't-quite-believe-it elation that was hard to resist. 

When Actual Life 3 arrived that October, complete with those Boiler Room highlights, its crowd-pleasing mix of emotion and jump-up energy already had a captive audience who were now desperate to catch Fred again.. live in 2023. 

He Formed An Instantly Iconic DJ Trio

Fred again..'s banner year was turbo-charged by his DJ bromance with brothers-in-bass Skrillex and Four Tet. Cheekily self-coined "the Pangbourne Mafia," a reference to the sleepy English village where they convened to make music, the trio kicked off 2023 with a surprise back-to-back-to-back set in London, and the fun snowballed from there. (As Fred again.. put it in 2022, "Other human beings are infinitely more inspiring than anything else in the world.") 

Following a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in February 2023, the DJs were called in last-minute to close weekend two of Coachella. For fans who fell in love with Fred again..'s Boiler Room, it was a surreal thrill to hear "Danielle (smile on my face)" and "Delilah (pull me out of this)" ring out across an expansive sea of festival goers. 

He Ticked Major Goals Off His Bucket List

Instead of coasting on the goodwill of his breakout 2022, Fred again.. spent 2023 searching out new challenges and shades to his sound. In March, he teamed up with Irish singer/songwriter Dermot Kennedy (whose soulful croon appeared on the first Actual Life) and legendary lyricist The Streets on the track "Mike (desert island duvet)". 

Fred again.. appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series in April, which he approached with his customary wide-eyed zeal. The performance of Actual Life cuts featured Fred again.. as a one-man band, jumping between keyboard, vibraphone, marimba, and microphone, while looping his vocals and beats to dazzling effect. 

In May, hot on the heels of that adrenalized Coachella closer, he switched up the pace and released an ambient album, Secret Life, with his musical mentor Brian Eno, who he first met at just 16 years old in Eno's a capella choir group.

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He Played His Biggest Live Shows To Date 

Closing Coachella with your best DJ buddies is hard to top, but Fred again.. kept leveling up. In June, he and his onstage partner Tony Friend played to an expanse of revelers on shoulders and waving colorful flags at Glastonbury, which he later called "my favorite show we've ever played". 

From there, he took his well-honed live show across the U.S. and Europe, complete with precisely-cued visuals across a multi-screen setup with LED panels. Instead of jumping from city to city, the producer set up record-breaking residencies in Los Angeles and New York that allowed him to deliver the same highs over multiple nights. 

This summer, he's set to headline Sunday night at Bonnaroo — reportedly his only U.S. festival appearance scheduled for 2024 — followed by select festival dates across Europe and the UK, including the famed Reading and Leeds double-header. 

He Kicked Off A New Musical Era 

In August, Fred again.. released "adore u" with Nigerian artist Obongjayar, describing it on his Soundcloud as "the first song of a whole new world to me". Inspired by the pair's respective siblings, "adore u" arrived as the perfect synthesis of Fred again..'s earnest, open-hearted world view and club-ready instincts. The producer followed "adore u" with the aching house shuffle ''ten," featuring US rapper Jozzy, and the rowdier drum & bass-filled "leavemealone" alongside previous Best New Artist nominee Baby Keem. 

This trio of 2023 songs reflects a broadening of Fred again..'s sound and influences ahead of his next album project. Whatever highs are yet to come, 2023 will stand as the year that Fred again.. made his own. 

David Guetta Reveals The "Accidents Of Life" That Birthed Hits With Bebe Rexha, Nicki Minaj & More

At the 2024 GRAMMYs on Feb. 4, history will be made for an entire continent. 

African musicians will finally have a competition to call their own, with the inaugural Best African Music Performance category. GRAMMY winner Burna Boy will go head-to-head with fellow Afrobeats superstars Asake and Davido, as well as rising pop singers Ayra Star of Nigeria and Tyla of South Africa. 

But the 66th GRAMMY Awards is far from the first time Africans have been honored during Music's Biggest Night. African musicians have been taking home golden gramophones since the 1960s, when South African Miriam Makeba won Best Folk Album for her duo with Harry Belafonte. Since then, desert blues bands from the Sahara, extraordinary singers from Senegal and Cape Verde, pop divas from Nigeria and Benin, and a superstar DJ from South Africa have earned trophies in various categories. 

Read on for a history of notable GRAMMY winners from Africa, whose works run the gamut of styles, traditions and categories. 

Miriam Makeba (South Africa) 

Best Folk Recording (with Harry Belafonte) - 1966

Before singer Mariam Makeba won a GRAMMY for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, a collaborative record with her mentor Harry Belafonte, an African artist had never won a thing at the GRAMMYs. That the singer had done this while fighting the apartheid regime of South Africa in exile — and amid the civil rights movement in the United States — makes it all the more revolutionary. 

Born in the segregated township of Prospect near Johannesburg in 1932 to a Xhosa father and a Swazi mother, Makeba sang in choirs as a child and gravitated towards a musical career. A part in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa rocketed her to fame in the U.S. and UK, and she traveled to New York and London, performing Xhosa-language folk songs like "Pata Pata" and "Qongqothwane." In London she met Belafonte, who helped her career get started in the United States. 

In 1960, Makeba’s anti-Apartheid activities caught up with her when she was banned from reentering South Africa, forcing her into exile in America. She balanced her musical career with activism, speaking out against Apartheid and integrating protest into records such as Belafonte/Makeba. The album featured the two singing folk songs from across Africa in languages such as Swahili and Zulu, several with explicitly anti-Apartheid themes. 

Though Makeba fell out of favor with white American audiences in the late ‘60s due to close ties with the Black Power movement — she married Black Panther associate Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) in 1968, leading to a de facto media boycott and surveillance by the CIA and FBI — she continued to perform internationally and protest the South African regime. As Apartheid finally fell in 1990, a newly-freed Nelson Mandela arranged for her homecoming. 

Sade (Nigeria/UK)

Best New Artist - 1986

Born in Ibadan, Nigeria to a Yoruba-ancestry father and an English mother, Helen Folasade Adu had studied fashion in London before becoming the vocalist and face of the band that bears her name, Sade. The jazzy, soulful sophisti-pop on their 1985 record Promise earned instant acclaim, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Multiple GRAMMYs followed, starting with a Best New Artist award in 1986. 

The group earned eight additional nominations throughout their career and won another three, including Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "No Ordinary Love" and Best Pop Vocal Album for Lovers Rock. But their influence — especially that of the famously reclusive singer Adu — resonates beyond awards. Beyoncé, FKA twigs, Frank Ocean, Drake and many others have been influenced by or paid tribute to this iconic force in music. 

Ali Farka Touré (Mali) 

Best World Music Album - 1994

Raised in the town of Niafunké on the edge of the Sahara not far from Timbuktu, Ali Ibrahim Touré was always a bit stubborn, hence his nickname "Farka" (Donkey). It was this headstrong nature that led him to music — his parents frowned upon his musical ambitions, but he defied them, building his own musical instruments. 

If Ali Farka Touré had listened to his parents, he may never have become the godfather of desert blues, the guitar-driven genre that has taken over North Africa. After traveling throughout his home country of Mali, absorbing the different cultures within, Touré went abroad and heard American blues music for the first time, specifically John Lee Hooker, noticing the similarities between his African tunes and the music made by those whose ancestors had been taken from the continent. He began to hit upon a style that fuses his African influences with those from across the Atlantic. 

Touré once surmised "My music is older than the blues," and became a crucial influence on generations of desert blues musicians to come, including Tinariwen, Mdou Moctar, and his own son and fellow musician Vieux Farka Touré. His pioneering sound would bring him two GRAMMYs for Best World Music Album in his lifetime, the first in 1994 for the collaborative record Talking Timbuktu with Ry Cooder, and the second in 2005 for In the Heart of the Moon. In 2010, he was posthumously awarded a golden gramophone for Best Traditional World Music Album, for Ali and Toumani. 

Before his death in 2006, he became mayor of Niafunké and used the money he earned from his music to build roads, sewers, and a generator for the town. 

Cesária Évora (Cape Verde)

Best Contemporary World Music Album - 2004

Hailing from the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde off the western coast of Africa, Cesária Évora grew up in poverty and began singing as a child. Starting off as a club singer in the port city of Mindelo, she gained fame as the "Barefoot Diva," performing without shoes in tribute to the poor. It was her voice, however, that made her an international star, representing her small island nation by singing in Portuguese-derived Cape Verdean Creole and popularizing the melancholic, fado and blues-derived genre of morna. 

Évora had already spent years performing around the world — despite considerable discomfort with stardom — by the time her album Voz d’Amor won Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 2004 GRAMMYs. Évora continued to live in Cape Verde even after becoming famous until her death in 2011 at age 70. 

Youssou N’Dour (Senegal) 

Best Contemporary World Music Album - 2005

Youssou N’Dour, a legendary vocalist from Senegal, had been made famous in the West for his work on Peter Gabriel’s "In Your Eyes" and the Neneh Cherry collab "7 Seconds." He had also worked on Paul Simon’s Album Of The Year-winning Graceland alongside South Africans Ladysmith Black Mambazo (which won two GRAMMYs before N’Dour even received his first). 

But in 2005, he made history as Senegal’s first GRAMMY winner. N’Dour had been nominated three times for Best World Album and once for Best Contemporary World Music Album, finally winning the latter category that year for his album Egypt. (The Sufi-inspired record also earned Egyptian producer Fathy Salama his country’s first GRAMMY). 

The GRAMMY Award was simply the capstone on a long, illustrious career. Born into a griot family in Dakar, telling stories through music was in N’Dour’s blood. In the late 1970s he gained massive acclaim locally as lead vocalist for the band Etoile de Dakar, which pioneered the mbalax genre by blending Afro-Latin dance music with traditional local rhythms. His soaring voice wouldn’t stay confined to his homeland for long as his work with Gabriel in 1986 lifted him to international stardom. Unlike many Francophone-African stars, he stayed in Senegal after breaking through and lives there to this day. 

Angélique Kidjo (Benin/France)

Best Contemporary World Music Album - 2008

Originating from French-speaking Benin and now living in France, Angélique Kidjo

is the most GRAMMY-winning African musician in history. Her five trophies — starting in 2008 with a Best Contemporary World Music Album for Djin Djin — include three Best World Music Album wins and, most recently, a Best Global Music Album award for Mother Nature, which featured collaborations with Burna Boy, Mr. Eazi, and other new-gen African pop acts. 

But more than being a GRAMMYs juggernaut, Kidjo is a grand dame of African music and a matriarchal figure for African musicians. After fleeing Benin for Paris in 1983, she signed with Island Records and rose to international acclaim in the early ‘90s thanks to dance-pop hits such as "Batonga" and "Agolo." Her album Fifa from 1996 saw her return to Benin, working with percussionists throughout the country. 

Her many records since have seen her broaden her musical horizons, exploring African American music in a trilogy of LPs, giving a full-album tribute to salsa icon Celia Cruz, and even reinterpreting Talking Heads’ African-influenced record Remain in Light. Fluent in five languages — including French, English, Yoruba and Fon — Kidjo communicates across the musical world, working with everyone from Carlos Santana and Ziggy Marley, to Tony Allen, Gilberto Gil, and members of Vampire Weekend. 

RedOne (Morocco)

Best Dance/Electronic Album - 2010

Born in the mountainous city of Tétouan in northern Morocco, Nadir Khayat moved to Sweden to pursue a career in pop music at age 19, lured by the likes of ABBA and Europe. Taking the production alias RedOne, he experienced limited success with artists like the A*Teens, but it wasn’t until he decamped to Jersey City in 2007 that he met the artist who would define his career and win him his GRAMMYs: a little-known pop singer calling herself Lady Gaga. 

Khayat ended up producing six tracks on Gaga’s debut record The Fame, including her breakthrough hit "Just Dance" — that’s his name you hear her shout at the beginning of the song, by the way. The bombastic, maximalist sound of "Just Dance," "Poker Face," "LoveGame," and Fame Monster tracks like "Bad Romance" and "Alejandro" would conquer the charts, and the GRAMMYs. 

At the 2010 GRAMMYs, The Fame won Best Dance/Electronic Album and "Poker Face" won Best Dance Recording; the next year, The Fame Monster earned Best Pop Vocal Album. Both LPs received Album Of The Year nods and "Poker Face" was nominated for Record and Song Of The Year. RedOne also earned a Moroccan Royal Award from King Mohamed VI in 2011; Though he hasn’t gotten a GRAMMY nod since 2012, few producers have had a run like he did. 

Tinariwen (Mali/Algeria/Libya)

Best World Music Album - 2012

Just a year after Ali Farka Touré earned his final, posthumous GRAMMY, the desert blues band Tinariwen earned their first: Best World Music Album for their LP Tassili. The path they took to get there, however, was far more complicated than Farka’s, involving rebellion, war, and displacement. 

Tinariwen’s members hail from the nomadic Tuareg people of the Sahara, whose frequent battles for independence have continued since the 1960s. Since forming in the 1980s the band’s music-making activities have been interrupted by rebellions against various North African governments, with some of the members even joining the fight. Featuring lyrics about the Tuareg people and their struggle for self-determination, Tinariwen's songs were traded on cassettes across North Africa. 

In the 2000s, they began to release music in the West, first via 2001's The Radio Tisdas Sessions and have since earned acclaim from the global music community. Along with their 2012 win for Tassili, two more of their albums have been nominated: Elwan in 2017 and Amadjar in 2020. They’ve also worked with international musicians such as Mark Lanegan and Daniel Lanois. 

That international acclaim has unfortunately come amid further danger at home. The group were exiled from Mali during the early 2010s Tuareg anti-government rebellion, with particular threats coming from Islamist militants Ansar Dine. Conflict is sadly still a part of life for many desert blues artists; in 2023 the Niger-based Mdou Moctar and his band were unable to return from a U.S. tour due to a military coup d’état in their home country. 

Burna Boy (Nigeria)

Best Global Music Album - 2021

Femi Kuti, King Sunny Adé, Babatunde Olatunji, and his rival WizKid had all received GRAMMY nods before Burna Boy became the first Nigerian male artist to grab a golden gramophone for an original work. The Afrobeats megastar earned the prize for Best World Music Album in 2021 for his album Twice as Tall. 

At the 66th GRAMMY Awards, Burna Boy has gathered four nominations — a career record. His "City Boys" is nominated in the first-ever Best African Music Performance category. His record I Told Them… earned a slot in Best Global Music Album, and two other songs from the album also got nominations: Best Global Music Performance for "Alone" and Best Melodic Rap Performance for the 21 Savage collab "Sittin’ On Top of the World." 

Black Coffee (South Africa)

Best Dance/Electronic Album - 2022

Before Black Coffee’s album Subconsiously won Best Dance/Electronic Album at the the 2022 GRAMMYs — the first African to win the category for an original project — most of South Africa’s winners were vocal performers like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Soweto Gospel Choir. The DJ/producer’s victory represents a shift around ideas of what African musicians are capable of, from traditional genres and folk music to the high-tech world of electronic dance music. 

That success hasn’t necessarily come easy for the musician, born Nkosinathi Innocent Maphumulo in KwaZulu Natal province. In 1990 while celebrating Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Maphumulo lost the use of his left arm in a car accident. Disability didn’t deter him from pursuing a music career, and by the mid-2000s he had become celebrated in his home country for helping develop Afro house, blending the international house music sound with influences from kwaito, mbaqanga, and other South African genres and sounds. 

Today, Black Coffee is one of the most sought-after house DJs in the world, but back home in SA and across Africa, it’s the sultry sound of Amapiano, an Afro-House offshoot, that reverberates in clubs and at festivals today. A new generation of talent have embraced the smooth genre, from pop princess Tyla and producer/DJ Musa Keys to Nigerian Afrobeats stars like Davido and Asake, all of whom have nods at this year’s GRAMMYs. 

Here Are The Nominees For Best African Music Performance At The 2024 GRAMMYs

New York City's dance music scene is notoriously hard to break into, especially as top promoters compete to book big name DJs rather than foster local talent. But that hasn't stopped Brooklyn-based, Benin-born AMÉMÉ from making a name for himself and getting recognition from lauded dance acts like Black Coffee, Jamie Jones, RÜFÜS DÜ SOL, Damian Lazarus and BLOND:ISH. 

Last year, Mixmag named AMÉMÉ one of their breakthrough DJs of the year and Beatportal included him in their Beatport Next class of 2022. When he was having trouble getting DJ gigs, he created his own party, "One Tribe," at popular Bushwick venue House of Yes in 2017 to promote African-leaning house music. When labels weren't signing his tracks, he got their attention with his own One Tribe Records. 

Inspired by his stylish mother and with support from his fashion designer sister, AMÉMÉ launched a One Tribe clothing brand and DJed New York Fashion Week parties. His commitment to carving out a path to spread his percussive, synth-laden brand of Afro House has paid off and catapulted him towards his dreams in ways he could never imagine; including forging mentorships and friendships with Jones and Black Coffee.

During the pandemic, he was a regular on BLOND:ISH's Abracadabra DJ set livestreams on Twitch, spreading his infectious sound beyond New York City. Soon after, he gained traction in the party zone of Tulum, Mexico where he first got to play with his idol Black Coffee. Things have only gone up from there: He's since played in other dance music hubs Ibiza, Miami, Berlin and Amsterdam, and major festivals like Coachella, Outside Lands, CRSSD and Burning Man.

Raised by a Nigerian mother — who is a best friend, business and spiritual advisor — a Beninese father, and Togolese grandmother, in a household filled with an eclectic mix of music, it's only natural for AMÉMÉ to imbue his work with multicultural elements. The track, "Kaleta," which he released in March on One Tribe Records, features his mom singing a traditional Nigerian children's chant. "Patchido," released in 2020 on One Tribe Records, featuring Don Bello Ni, is a traditional chant from Benin about fixing and reusing things.

GRAMMY.com recently sat down with the artist born Hubert Amémé Sodogandji at the Arlo Williamsburg Hotel in Brooklyn — where he helped build their music program and was a resident DJ. AMÉMÉ radiates warmth and creativity, proof that he has lived up to the meaning of his last name: "the thunder is about to strike." 

His mother, Hélène D., also joined, and shared what it meant to her to see her son representing West Africa on the global stage: "[I feel] pride. He has a deep conviction that was made for this. And this is just the beginning; I know he will be doing this for a long time."

Your latest single is "Ando High" with Tom & Collins out of Mexico City. Can you tell me about the different sonic elements on the track?

I have been friends with the guys from Tom & Collins for a while. I met Jorge maybe six years ago when I first played in Mexico City; he booked me to play at the club [he was working at]. After that, They came to see me play and I could see that they were doing their homework, like, Let's see where this kid is sonically. They realized I mix a couple of [different styles] when I'm playing. They reached out to me; "We have this Latin vocal and want you to bring your vibe to it."

The vocal hit me the first time. When I hear something for the first time, I always let my emotion kick in. I don't like to listen to it twice. Because at the end of the day, you want to do something you like and you want to do something that's going to work.

The drums, djembe, toms, percussions, shakers and everything else came from me. They had the vocal, and had already laid a little bit of the kicks and snares and most of the tech house elements in the track. I brought all the German synthesizers and some of the melodic aspects of this track. Latin house meets Afro. It's a great example of what I always wanted to do, of what I wanted to stand for. Obviously, stick to my original sounds, but then bridge a couple of different gaps by bringing different elements together. This is about expanding the boundaries of what Afro house is.

Afro house has definitely been having a moment in the global dance scene. What do you hope comes with it as it continues to rise?

The next big move that I hope happens and I hope I am a part of is for the Afro house world to collide with the Afrobeats world. I think that's when major things are gonna start happening. Afrobeat is massive on a commercial and pop level. Guys like Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid and Asake are crushing it all around — they're selling out stadiums. 

Afro house is still a smaller bubble and we just need some of those DJ/producers to start communicating and connecting with those Afrobeat artists to bring Afro house to the popular crowd. You can see it with amapiano, which just came out a couple of years ago and is more popular than Afro house.

Amapiano is the closest thing to electronic music that has happened in the Afrobeat world. A win for amapiano is a win for all of us because it's an extension of what we do. 

Do you ever feel like you get pigeonholed into Afro house?

Automatically, because of my origin, but also because that's the sound I've championed for some time. A lot of the Afro house DJs and producers are kind of stuck in this in a box where they play the same lineups with the same promoters booking them.

It's a very restricted scene if you're not at a "Black Coffee level", and he's probably the only one breaking those boundaries. Most of the promoters that are booking purely Afro sounds are in a restrictive space where the artists don't really get to jump on other festivals.

What kind of music did you listen to growing up? What was playing in your house?

Coupé-décalé from the Ivory Coast. Fela [Kuti] — the original Afrobeat. P-Square — they paved the way for guys like Burna Boy and Wizkid. Dombolo, which is this sound from the Congo. And my mom used to listen to French music, French classical sounds. And I loved French rap and was in a French rap band. There was always music at home.

How have you balanced being an artist on the rise with your own goals and taking care of yourself?

I've always been a workaholic at the core. I've done it all. I had three jobs at the same time while going to school. I never said no. Anything I've done professionally, I've always done it well. I will outwork most people. I think of 50,000 things at the same time but I will have the patience to sit down the whole day and be disciplined about how to manage my time. I just try over and over and think about it until I get it right. Honestly, that's just how I was raised. I think everything I did before prepared me for the load of work that needs to be done.

I'm a naturally competitive human being but I never look at anybody outside of myself as major competition, I look at them as inspiration. I love to see what other people are doing because that can only inspire me to find my own path. The cake is so big that everybody can have a piece of it. It's easier said than done, for sure, because it's such a fluctuating space. Some people become crazy viral in a day and other people just have to work for it. I'm okay with that. I definitely see a plus in building something from the ground up.

What's the meaning of "Kaleta" and what inspired you to feature your mom on it?

I always wanted to bring her into my creative process because we have a very close relationship. I was looking for different traditional chants from my culture. "Kaleta" is a chant that kids sing, so you need a high-pitched voice. She has an unusual high-pitched voice that could blend into that space. We recorded it in my living room. The first version of "Kaleta" happened almost eight years ago, but it never came out.

When I was in Berlin, I went back to the vocals and wanted to create more of a club banger. I came back to New York and recorded a couple more samples from her. [My mom's] a very active part of my life and she's always giving me ideas. I'm always asking her what she thinks about [things I'm working on]. There's actually a second track with her coming out next year that I spent almost half of the year testing out.

What does it mean to you to have support from House giants like Jamie Jones and Black Coffee? And how did you first get connected with each of them?

Black Coffee has always been an idol of mine. It's crazy what he's accomplished with all the setbacks that he has had in his life. When I started to play, a lot of people said, "You remind me of Black Coffee musically." But I wanted to create my own story. I think this is also one of the reasons why we have such a great relationship, because he knows I'm not trying to be him.

The second show I played with him in Tulum, he played right after me. I saw his face [when I was playing] and he was shaking his head [to the music], he was feeling it. [When it was his turn] he stopped the music and he gave me a round of applause in front of the crowd. These are the moments you live for. And this was right before my rise. Sometimes it's important for me to slow down and have appreciation for these things because this is not normal. It's very easy to get into the normality of things and not appreciate it.

Jamie's managed by my manager as well, but there's a lot of other artists on the team. We got close two years ago during Art Basel. Louis Vuitton was doing an event and we were invited and our manager was like, "I'm not gonna go, you guys want to go together?" I was literally crossing my fingers to see if he'd say yes. We spent the whole day together…and spoke about so many things. At the end of the day he looks at me and says, "Let's work on a track together," and the next day, he sent me something. I like to believe that there was a nice, genuine vibe around what he does and what I do. 

I have a lot of respect for those two individuals; it's always a good vibe when I'm around them. And hopefully soon I get to do something with Black Coffee.

Can you share your vision and dreams for One Tribe?

The first version of One Tribe was a space where we could champion African-inspired electronic music. I could not get gigs in New York and I wanted to create a space for it. And then, when I had challenges with releasing my first song, I launched One Tribe and put the team together. All the labels that I had sent music to were like, "How come you didn't send us this track?" I said, "Check your email from six months ago, you got it." A lot of people nowadays don't have the backbone to say they like it, but they will when they see everybody else jumping on it. So don't be discouraged if some people are not giving you the "yes" that you want. If you really believe in it, and things are moving, look at all the little wins and keep going.

When I started really touring a lot as AMÉMÉ and I wanted to really bring One Tribe to the next level, I decided that 2022 was only going to be about the music. Next year, we have some very exciting news and lots of very interesting stuff, like showcases, partnerships, and stage takeovers at very interesting festivals and iconic venues. 

The fashion side, we'll be coming back through capsule collection releases and collaborations. It's gonna be a 360 experience. I can't wait because this is even bigger than me, this is about being able to create a movement where the sound is championed.

Tell me about some of the artists that you've recently signed to One Tribe [Records].

Bontan is UK-based and is honestly one of my favorite artists of all time. I always wanted to get him in because of the way he lays his drums. He has had a very amazing year; he's remixed Green Velvet and is on most of the Paradise lineups. I'm also very aware of creating a diverse space because I also want to give space to other upcoming, as well as established, African artists to flourish. I've spoken to guys like Shinza and more on-the-ground artists like Vanco from South Africa, and we have [released music from] NenaHalena from the UK.

I live in New York and travel all over Europe, so I'm a lot more exposed to European and American artists. Now I'm trying to actively get more in touch with African artists. We are opening our doors to the world and the representation needs to be there; also on the female side. I want to make sure we have an open-door policy and people can see that.

Who are some other African dance music producers that you think should be on people's radar right now, or that you want to sign to One Tribe?

There's Nitefreak. Musically, he's really crushing it and he definitely deserves more recognition for the work he's done. There're guys like Van Gogh. He hasn't put much out there lately, but I've heard some of the tracks he's been working on I'm like, "Wow, dude, people need to hear more of this." I would like to hear more from Sona, Black Coffee's son, on a musical level, not just on a DJ level.

The reality is there are producers in West, East, North and South Africa that are talented and I'm not doing enough work to have access to those sounds. I want to put on a South and West and East African tour. It's not a money thing, it's more like let me get there and try to figure out how I can impact and support it. And also let it be a learning moment for myself as well. I'm West African and I grew up in Africa for 17 years, but I've been away for a while. Things have changed.

What are your dreams and goals for AMÉMÉ and One Tribe in 2024?

I think who AMÉMÉ is right now and what maybe it was the last two years is a little different. I've matured a lot in terms of who I am and what I want. Everything happens so fast, that I had to take a little step back and ask where is this thing going? And where do I want it to be? I want to have a legacy. I'm still committed to creating something that is bringing people together; I want to be that bridge. I want to be the individual that is pushing the boundaries of things to allow more people to come into the space.

The one thing that is different from me two, three years ago, was that I wanted to get to the top. I truly believe that if I do something impactful enough, it will speak for itself. I'm gonna focus in more on creating versus chasing, but I'm still dedicated.

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