Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Nominated for Grammy, for Her Contribution to Beyonce’s Latest Album

by Andrea on Feb 6th, 2015

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Album, for her contribution to Beyoncé Knowles’ 2013 album, Beyoncé.

Beyoncé released the album without warning in December 2013, and it included a track called “***Flawless”, which samples a talk given by Adichie earlier that year at TEDxEuston entitled “We Should All Be Feminists”.

Beyoncé then published a passionate article entitled “Gender Equality Is a Myth!” on The Shriver Report. But her feminist stance was called into question after a controversial duet with Jay-Z at the 2014 Grammys – of his song “Drunk in Love” – which was heavily criticised for making light of domestic abuse.

Amid a wave of publicity, Adichie’s speech was subsequently published as an ebook. In an interview with Vogue last year, Adichie admitted she had become “bored” by the constant questions she received about the song, but admitted that she was pleasantly surprised by having her thoughts on feminism go “viral”.

Read an excerpt from We Should all be Feminists here

The other artists nominated for Album of the Year are Beck (for Morning Phase), Ed Sheeran (X), Sam Smith (In The Lonely Hour) and Pharrell Williams (Girl). Hat-tip to Sahara Reporters for spotting Adichie’s name on the nomination list.

Complete list of 2015 Grammy nominees

The 57th annual Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, 8 February.

Watch Adichie’s full TEDx talk, “We Should All Be Feminists”:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc[/youtube]