By Cyril Ehis
Fela Kuti to receive 2026 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his global Afrobeat legacy
One of Nigeria’s greatest musicians, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, continues to shine even after his death, as the Recording Academy confirmed last quarter that arrangements had been made to honour the Afrobeat pioneer with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
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Fela, who died in August 1997, will be honoured alongside global music icons Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Cher, Paul Simon, and Carlos Santana, all recognized for lifetime achievements and cultural impact.
The recording academy disclosed this in a statement on its website and fix the date of the ceremony for January 31, 2026, explaining that the Lifetime Achievement Award is presented by vote of its National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetime, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.
They described the late musician as an architect of Afrobeat, honoured for a lifetime of influence, stressing that his revolutionary music and sociopolitical activism brought him into conflict with successive Nigerian military regimes and shaped modern Nigerian Afrobeats
On January 31, 2026, we are honouring this year’s Special Merit Award recipients, including Fela Kuti, with a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, and activist who created Afrobeat in the 1960s by combining funk, jazz, salsa, calypso, and traditional Nigerian rhythms’, the statement reads.
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“His revolutionary music and sociopolitical activism brought him into conflict with successive Nigerian military regimes and shaped modern Nigerian Afrobeats, inspiring artists such as Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, and Thom Yorke. His legacy continues through his family, the Kalakuta Museum, and the New Afrika Shrine.”
