Wizkid received 5 Grape Juice awards, makes 50 best songs of 2021

Wizkid has continued to win adulation for his global smash hit, Essence, a collabo with Tems.

The latest is the song being listed as No. 1 by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 50 Best Songs of 2021.

As the year tapered out, Wizkid also won the Best International Act at the Grape Juice awards, beating Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, including compatriot Burna Boy.

He also won for Most Active Fan Base and Best Male Artist.

Tems won Best New Artist, while sharing honours with Wizkid, for Best Single of the Year and Best Collaboration, along with Justin Bieber.

The winners were picked based on ove 200,000 votes by music fans.

In listing Essence among the 50 Best songs of 2021, Rolling Stone.com wrote:

“Wizkid’s massive international hit offered the best vision possible of our eternally shrinking world: at once local and global, intimate and universal.

“On it, the Nigerian singer, one of the most popular pop artists in Africa, embraced one of his country’s newest talents. Their performances are distinct yet seamless, joining together over a melange of Nineties American R&B, U.K. Afroswing, and percussive Nigerian Afrobeats.

“Essence” hit the top of several U.S. charts in 2021 after it got a Justin Bieber remix this summer, but its reach was wide well before.

“I want everyone to understand [the song],” said P2J, one of its producers, “but still understand the essence of the music is from Africa.”

“The result was a sound of status and place coalescing without the loss of identity”.