Hours ago, Tems nabbed a Grammy for the song “Love Me Jeje” in the Best African Music Performance category, becoming the sole Nigerian artist to win for her own project at the 2025 Grammys.
She is the second Nigerian act in history to win for their own project, following Burna Boy’s 2021 win. (Other Nigerian acts, like Wizkid and Sikiru Adepoju, have Grammy plaques but for their contributions to projects fronted by other artists. Two ceremonies ago, Tems herself got a Best Melodic Rap Performance Grammy for the Future song “Wait For U”.)
As fans of Tems celebrate, there will be those who wonder why Nigerian music has managed to be reckoned with at the Grammys fairly consistently over the past few years, but that same welcome hasn’t been accorded to Nigerian movies at the Oscars.
Here are six reasons Nollywood has zero Oscars, but Tems has Grammys.
Nollywood doesn’t/didn’t care
Until very recently, Nigerian filmmakers were content with making movies for the Nigerian audience. Their budgets were low as were their ambitions. The industry seemed aware that its VHS movies had no business contesting for prizes at an event featuring films with budgets and box office figures that would finance the entire Nollywood for a few years.
Living In Bondage, released in 1992, is Nollywood’s commercial pioneer but it barely exists in global financial terms. Consider that in the same 1992, the film to win Best Picture at the Oscars was Silence of the Lambs. It earned over $270m on a $19m budget.
A better comparison is Gabriele Salvatores’s Mediterraneo, which won the Best Foreign Language Oscar that year. But even that film earned over $4m, a figure that would spark immense joy even today in Nollywood. But money is one thing. Ambition is another. Almost 20 years ago, 9ice famously said he’ll “bring home Grammy”. He didn’t—but what is the Nollywood equivalent of that aspiration?
Music isn’t cheap but films are even more expensive
If the Tiktok algorithm favours you and you find favour with a record label, a song made in your bedroom can become a digital hit and launch your music career. If things go in your favour, you may find yourself at the Grammys. That is a simplified version of how Ayra Starr worked her way to a Grammy nomination.
By contrast, there are limits to the kind of films you can make in your bedroom. And the kind of film you can do in that way is unlikely to carry you to the Grammys. The financial investment is prohibitive for many Nollywood filmmakers and aspiring filmmakers.
This is an obstacle to building a career intent on getting to the Oscars stage.
Many mainstream Nollywood films remain mediocre
While budgets have improved and Nollywood’s production values show the results of that improvement, too many mainstream Nigerian films are just not very good from an artistic standpoint, especially from a western artistic standpoint. Industry insiders themselves will tell you that storytelling/screenwriting remains an industry-wide challenge.
If, as seen online, young, educated Nigerians scorn Nollywood releases available on streaming platforms, the Academy cannot be expected to treat these films like works of art deserving of recognition. Meanwhile, everybody loves Nigerian pop music. Old and young, rich or poor, European, American, or African, everybody moves to Afrobeats. With quality and acceptance that high, the Grammys had to reckon with the sound. Nollywood has improved but it has yet to convince at scale.
Quality control is harder for Nollywood than for Afrobeats
While selling a song or a film can involve large teams, producing either is typically different. In the simplest of terms, Tems can make a decent song with a tiny team consisting of one producer, one lyricist, and one vocalist. She can also be all three things. Movies require a sound person, an editor, a cinematographer, a producer, a director, and acting talents.
One person can be most of these things, but it is hard to have one person be all of these things for a feature film. To make the kind of film that would get recognised for a renowned award is to have a certain level of quality across all of the departments, a task that is easier managed for a small team than for a large one.
As a country, Nigeria hasn’t quite developed a widespread system for all-round quality control for large projects. Nollywood suffers from this lack than the music industry does.
The Grammys have African categories, the Oscars do not
As a result of the popularity of African pop music, and Afrobeats in particular, the Grammys created the Best African Music Performance category in 2023. In announcing it, a piece on the event’s website said this: “If you like rock, hip-hop, blues, jazz, folk music, bluegrass … really, just about every form of American music, then you have the genius of Africa to thank.”
In other words, the new category was a mark of respect and gratitude. It also opened a new path to glory for African acts who, before then, had to fight for nods in “world music”, a categorisation that led to African acts battling every act not making “American music”.
The Oscars haven’t made that kind of concession to African filmmakers. For now, Nollywood’s Oscar dreamers still have to battle films from all over the world for nominations in the Best Foreign Film category.
Big Business loves Nigerian music; it doesn’t love Nollywood
It is by design that all of the Nigerian artists who regularly get Grammy attention are affiliated to the Big 3 record labels in the world: Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group.
Fact is the big western players love the big awards and know how to go about campaigning to win them for their artists. This has favoured Tems, who is signed to RCA, a division of Sony Music. But she is not alone.
Burna Boy is signed to Atlantic, a label under Warner Music Group. Wizkid is with RCA/Sony. Rema and Ayra Starr were both discovered by Mavin Records, which has sold a majority stake to Universal Music Group. This is a far cry from Nollywood, which has only managed to attract and then repel investment from some of the biggest names in the business of global streaming.
In essence, while Big Business has continued to find value in contemporary Nigerian music since it signed Davido and Wizkid in 2016, Nollywood has failed to justify its investment. Even Netflix, once bullish on Nollywood, has decided to take a step back.
