| Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Influential music from around the globe |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences |
| First award | 1992 |
| Currently held by | Matt B featuringRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra,Alkebulan II (2025) |
| Website | grammy.com |
TheGrammy Award for Best Global Music Album is an honor presented to recording artists for influential music from around the globe at theGrammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards.[1] Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by theNational Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".[2]
The award for Best Global Music Album, reserved for international performers exhibiting "non-European, indigenous traditions", was first presented toMickey Hart in1992 for the albumPlanet Drum.[3][4] In 1996, Academy trustees attempted to solve the problem of "compressing 75% or more of the world's music into a single award category" by broadening the definition of "world music" to include non-Western classical music.[5] Beginning in2001, award recipients included theproducers,engineers, and/ormixers associated with the nominated work in addition to the recording artists. Following the45th Grammy Awards (2003), the award was split into two separate categories forBest Traditional World Music Album andBest Contemporary World Music Album. In 2012, the two categories were merged back to Best World Music Album.[6] In 2020, The Recording Academy announced it would be changing the name of the category to Best Global Music Album.[7]
Angelique Kidjo[8] has won the category the most, with five wins (four of which have been since 2016). The second group to win most often isLadysmith Black Mambazo,[9] who have won four times during the combined history of Global/World categories.Soweto Gospel Choir have three wins in the Global/World categories.[10] In the single merged category,Ravi Shankar andRy Cooder have both won twice. Angelique Kidjo also has the most nominations in the combined Global/World history with twelve additional nominations.Anoushka Shankar has the second most nominations in the combined categories with nine nominations.[11]
In the single, merged Global category, artists from Brazil have won the most times with five wins, the USA have won four times, Benin has also won on four occasions, India and South Africa each have three wins, Mali and France have both had artists win twice.
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^[I] Each year is linked to the article about the Grammy Awards held that year.
