Notably, Best Afrobeats, a category introduced at the VMAs in recent years, has been left out of this year’s lineup after just three editions.
Nigerian stars Burna Boy and Tems have secured nominations for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, even as the ceremony quietly dropped its dedicated Best Afrobeats category from this year’s lineup for the first time since introducing it.
Burna Boy earned a Best Collaboration nomination alongside Colombian superstar Shakira for “Dai Dai,” their joint single that also served as one of the official songs for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The track earned him a second nod as well, placing him in the Best Latin category alongside heavyweight names including Bad Bunny, Anitta, KAROL G, Rosalía and Fuerza Regida. Tems, meanwhile, picked up a Best R&B nomination for “Raindance,” her collaboration with British rapper Dave, where she’ll compete against Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Kehlani, and Mariah the Scientist & Kali Uchis.
The bigger story for Afrobeats fans is what’s missing. Best Afrobeats made its VMA debut in 2023, when Nigerian star Rema and Selena Gomez won the inaugural trophy for “Calm Down.” South African singer Tyla then took over the category entirely, winning back-to-back in 2024 for “Water” and in 2025 for “Push 2 Start” — making her the award’s most successful artist despite the friction her 2024 win caused when she distanced her sound from Nigerian Afrobeats in her acceptance speech, drawing public criticism from Nigerian on-air personality Do2dtun. MTV has offered no public explanation for the category’s removal after just three editions, and Best Afrobeats isn’t alone — Best Rock, Best Group, Best Pop Artist and Album of the Year are also absent from this year’s nominations, while Best Dance has returned after a seven-year hiatus.
The timing has sparked debate over what the removal actually signals. One read is that it’s simply part of a broader shuffling of genre categories this cycle. Another is that MTV is reconsidering how it classifies African music altogether. But a growing number of observers argue the category may simply have outlived its usefulness — that Afrobeats has already crossed into MTV’s general categories rather than needing a separate lane, pointing to how Burna Boy and Tems both landed nominations this year without it. Artists like Wizkid, Davido, Rema and Ayra Starr have built global audiences well beyond what a single genre category was built to capture, with Rema’s “Calm Down” standing as one of the biggest African-led crossover hits of the past decade.
Despite the loss of a Nigeria-specific stage, Burna Boy and Tems’s nominations underscore the country’s growing footprint across mainstream categories. The pattern echoes a mixed run at global awards more broadly — Nigerian acts including Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid, Omah Lay and Ayra Starr were shut out again at the February 2026 Grammys, where Tyla claimed Best African Music Performance for the second year running, this time for “Push 2 Start,” beating Burna Boy’s “Love” among others.
Madonna leads this year’s VMA field overall with 11 nominations, followed by Taylor Swift with nine and Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter with seven apiece. The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards will take place September 27 in Los Angeles, airing live on CBS and MTV and streaming on Paramount+, with fan voting open now through September 25.
