No Grammy for Wizkid, Jay Z leads nominations

No Nigerian artiste made the Grammy nomination list Tuesday. Not Wizkid who made it last year via a collabo with Drake. And not Davido, whose 30 billion song has made big impression worldwide.

Rather Jay-Z led the Grammy race  with eight nominations, followed closely by fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar with seven, in a striking embrace of hip-hop for the music industry’s top prizes.

Jay-Z, who has won an impressive 21 Grammys over his career but has never before been nominated in a major category as a solo artist, is up for Album of the Year for his “4:44” as well as for Record and Song of the Year.

“4:44” marked a return to music by the 47-year-old multi-millionaire after years focused on business ventures.

The album put on display an unusually vulnerable Jay-Z, who acknowledged his infidelity to wife Beyonce, revealed his mother’s closet struggles as a lesbian and tackled the state of US race relations.