LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 24: Davido accepts The Best International Act Award onstage at the 2018 BET Awards at Microsoft Theater on June 24, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Leon Bennett/Getty Images/AFP
Nigerian pop star Davido won Best International Act on Sunday at the BET Awards and urged greater collaborations between US and African musicians.
The BET Awards, established by Black Entertainment Television to recognize the best in African American culture, maintains an international category for black music from outside the United States.
Davido, 25, thanked his listeners in Nigeria and said that Africa as a continent “has been so blessed.”
“I’m telling you guys — come to Africa, eat the food, wear the clothes,” he told the audience full of African American A-list celebrities.
“Let’s collaborate, everybody. Let’s collaborate, man,” he said.
LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 24: Davido accepts The Best International Act Award onstage at the 2018 BET Awards at Microsoft Theater on June 24, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Leon Bennett/Getty Images/AFP
Davido, the US-educated son of a wealthy business mogul, is one of the leading forces in the Afrobeats movement that has swept the continent’s music scene.
Not to be confused with the funky Afrobeat of the 1970s, Afrobeats — with an “s” — brings together sounds from across the continent to create a danceable, pan-African music.
Other artists nominated for the BET international award included British rappers Stormzy, J Hus and Stefflon Don, French rappers Booba and Niska and the French-Congolese soul singer Dadju.
Other nominees were hip-hop producer Cassper Nyovest and house music innovators Distruction Boyz from South Africa along with Kinshasa-born singer and guitarist Fally Ipupa and Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage.