Grammy Awards 2008
Benin's Angelique Kidjo and South Africa's Soweto Gospel Choir picked up Grammy awards at this year's ceremony in Los Angeles.
The 50th annual Grammy Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles on Monday, 11 February 2008.
Despite an enormous number of different categories there is no African music category but there are two - category 74 for Best Traditional World Music Album (vocal or instrumental) and category 75 for Best Contemporary World Music Album (vocal or instrumental) - where African artists are regularly amongst the winners and nominees.
The Best Traditional World Music Album was won by Soweto Gospel Choir for their album 'African Spirit'. This has caused some surprise in the African music scene, after all the 26-strong Soweto Gospel Choir took home this same award for their album 'Blessed' at the 2007 ceremony.
This year they beat competition by Konono Nº1 ('Live At Couleur Café'), Cheick Hamala Diabate & Bob Carlin ('From Mali To America'), Rahim Al Haj With Souhail Kaspar ('When The Soul Is Settled: Music Of Iraq') and a various artists project led by producer Gregory Barz ('Singing For Life: Songs Of Hope, Healing, And HIV/AIDS In Uganda').
The Best Contemporary World Music Album award went to Beninese superstar Angelique Kidjo for her latest album 'Djin Djin'. Kidjo who was present at the ceremony was naturally excited as she has finally won her first Grammy in the contemporary world music category (Kidjo was nominated in this category in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007, whilst in 1995 she was nominated in the Best Music Video category).
Other nominees in this category were Céu ('Céu), Gilberto Gil ('Gil Luminoso'), Bebel Gilberto ('Momento') and Loreena McKennitt ('An Ancient Muse').