Amapiano star Musa Keys had just parked his car and was eating a bunny chow – a hollowed-out half loaf filled with South African-style curry – when he got the news of his Grammy nomination.
He’s up for the award in the Best African Music Performance category for Unavailable, a track he co-wrote and performed with afrobeats giant Davido. The ceremony is in February.
“I feel super great, amazing and I can’t wait to bring it back home,” says the South African record producer, whose real name is Musa Appreciate Makamu.
At 23, Musa Keys is the youngest male African nominee.
He shot to fame in 2021 with his hit single Vula Mlomo, which explores the practice of giving a gift to a bride’s father and the themes of love and vulnerability. It was certified double platinum by South Africa’s recording industry.
Musa caught the music bug when he was a teenager in Polokwane, a city north of Johannesburg.
He had joined a friend who was rehearsing with a church music group, and he immediately fell in love with the piano.
He is confident about the rising global popularity of amapiano, the Nguni word for pianos.
It’s a blend of house, jazz and lounge music full of synths and percussive basslines – and was born in South Africa in the mid-2010s.
Musa points out that a lot of African artists are “doing this amapiano-infused music and that’s what’s making them really win”.
“Who would have thought that a sound from South Africa could help people outside the country to make it big out there,” he says.
He predicts that “amapiano is going to be as big as afrobeats” and thinks the genre should get its own category at the Grammys.
“That’s something that I am personally fighting for,” he says.
Musa Keys has a new 5-track EP out called Becoming Him.