The late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, will be posthumously recognised with a special merit award at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
The Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards ceremony—honouring recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award, and Technical Grammy Award—will take place on January 31, 2026, as part of Grammy Week 2026, a day before the main Grammy Awards.
In an announcement shared on Instagram on Friday, the Recording Academy revealed that Fela is one of ten individuals selected for the prestigious honour.
The Grammys hailed Fela as the “architect of Afrobeat,” noting that his groundbreaking work defined the genre and continues to influence and inspire a new generation of artists.
“An architect of Afrobeat, honored for a lifetime of influence. Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, activist, and the father of Afrobeat. In the 1960s, he created the genre by combining funk, jazz, salsa, calypso, and a blend of traditional Nigerian rhythms,” they wrote.
“His influence spans generations, shaping modern Nigerian Afrobeats and inspiring global artists such as Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, and Thom Yorke. His legacy continues to live on not only through music, but through his family and through the Kalakuta Museum and the New Afrika Shrine.”
Fela joins an elite cohort of special merit award honourees, including Whitney Houston, Cher, Paul Simon, Chaka Khan, Carlos Santana, Sylvia Rhone, John Chowning, Eddie Palmieri, and Bernie Taupin.
The special awards ceremony is scheduled for February 1, 2026.
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