African music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti is set to make history as the first African artist to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Recording Academy announced in December.

The honour, awarded since 1963, recognises Kuti’s towering influence on global music and marks a watershed moment for African creativity on the world stage. The late Afrobeat pioneer, who passed away in 1997, will be honoured at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on January 31, alongside icons including Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Cher, Paul Simon and Carlos Santana, ahead of the 68th Grammy Awards.

Kuti revolutionised music in the 1960s by creating Afrobeat, fusing jazz, funk, highlife and traditional Nigerian rhythms with politically charged lyrics. Working closely with drummer Tony Allen, he transformed music into a weapon of resistance, releasing more than 50 albums that blended rhythm, ideology and protest.

In 2025, his seminal 1976 album Zombie was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, with sons Femi and Seun Kuti accepting the honour on his behalf.

Born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome Kuti, he later dropped the colonial surname and became a fearless critic of Nigeria’s military regimes, enduring repeated arrests, censorship and violence. Yet repression only amplified his global influence.

The Grammy recognition celebrates not only Fela Kuti’s musical genius, but his enduring legacy as an artist who used sound as a powerful voice for African liberation and social change.