South Africa’s Nomcebo Zikode, Zakes Bantwini & Wouter Kellerman Beat Nigeria’s Burna Boy To Win Grammy Award

South African artists Nomcebo Zikode, Zakes Bantwini, and Wouter Kellerman, won this year’s Grammy Awards for Best World Music Performance with their hit song “Bayethe”.

The three South African artists beat Nigeria’s Burna Boy, Uganda’s Eddy Kenzo, United States’ Matt B, Ghana’s Rocky Dawuni and Pakistan’s Arooj Aftab for Best World Music Performance at the Grammy Awards.

Nomcebo Zikode, best known as the lead singer of “Jerusalem”, vocalist, record producer and vocalist Zax Pantoini and acclaimed flautist, producer and songwriter Wouter Kellermann are all proud South Africans.

According to ZALebs, both Zikode and Bantwini expressed their excitement at the potential win during the prestigious Grammy luncheon reserved for African nominees the day before the awards ceremony. According to the publication, Zikode stated that he felt he had already won the award.

“I’m hoping that South African people are going to be proud of me, we’re hoping to take this one but hey, if we don’t take it, it’s OK, I feel like I’m a winner already,” Zikode said at the time.

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This is the first time Zikode and Bantwini have won a Grammy. Kellerman won the 2015 award for his album Winds of Samsara.

There was previously some controversy surrounding the song “Bayethe”, with OkayAfrica reporting that Zikode would take Open Mic Records to court after the singer claimed the South African label had asked Spotify to remove the song over an intellectual property dispute. It is unclear where the lawsuit currently stands.

Many fans of the record took to social media to congratulate the South African artists on this honor.