🔥 Breaking News! DEBUNKER Edition 37. – Project FactCheck Nigeria

The media was awash on Monday following the news of Nigerian music artist, Temilade Openiyi, Tems winning the Grammy Award.

News in the media and some tweets claimed Tems was the first Nigerian female artiste to win a Grammy Award.

The claim is false, here’s what we know

Tems is not the first Nigerian female artist to win the Grammy awards. Sade Adu, Cynthia Erivo, and Yemi Alade have all previously won the coveted music prize.

Tems, Burna Boy and Tobe Nwigwe were the Nigerians nominated for the 65th edition of the Grammy Awards held on February 5, 2023.

While others lost in the categories they were nominated, Tems won her nomination in the Best Melodic Rap Performance category for her role in ‘WAIT FOR U,’one of the three categories in which she was nominated.

Tems featured alongside Canadian rapper Drake and American rapper, Future.

Following this win, Nigerians have taken to social media to celebrate and congratulate Tems, describing her as the first Nigerian female artiste to achieve the feat. 

One of the many tweets that celebrated Tems as the first female Nigerian artiste to win the Grammy was by the All Progressive Congress via their verified Twitter handle. 

“Congratulations, Tems @temsbaby (Temilade Openiyi), on Grammy award – a 1st for a female Nigerian artiste”, the tweet read.

The claim was further echoed in conventional media, including Punch Newspaper and Okayafrica. The claim has continued to be echoed online and offline, but how true is it?

There have been three female artistes of Nigerian descent have previously won the Grammy before Tems.

Sade Adu, a British-Nigerian artiste born to a Nigerian father and British mother in Ibadan in 1959, was the first Nigerian to win the Grammy at the 28th edition in 1986. She won in the Best New Artist category.

She was further nominated for the 29th, 36th, 37th, 44th, 53rd, and 55th editions of the award winning 4 out of her eight nominations.

Further checks led to Cynthia Erivo, another British-Nigerian, born to Nigerian parents in England in 1987. She won two Grammy nominations during the 59th and 63rd editions of the award. 

A home grown Nigerian female artiste, Yemi Alade, won in the Best Global Music Album category at the 64th edition where she featured in Angelique Kidjo – Mother Nature. 

CONCLUSION

Tems is not the first female Nigerian artiste to win the Grammy award as Sade Adu, Cynthia Erivo, and Yemi Alade have previously won at different editions; therefore, the claim is False.