Burna Boy and Tems have secured a combined three nominations at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, keeping Nigeria firmly on the map at one of music’s biggest global stages even as the Best Afrobeats category disappears from this year’s lineup.
Burna Boy picked up two nods for “Dai Dai,” his collaboration with Colombian superstar Shakira that also served as an official 2026 FIFA World Cup song. The track is nominated for Best Collaboration, where it goes up against heavyweight pairings including Clipse’s “Chains & Whips” with Kendrick Lamar and Pusha T, and Madonna’s “Bring Your Love” with Sabrina Carpenter. “Dai Dai” also earned a Best Latin nomination, placing the Grammy winner alongside Bad Bunny, KAROL G and Anitta with Shakira in a category well outside his usual Afrobeats lane.
Tems, meanwhile, is up for Best R&B for “Raindance,” her collaboration with British-Nigerian rapper Dave. She faces a stacked field that includes Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Justin Bieber and Kehlani, but the nomination underlines how far her sound has travelled beyond the Afrobeats tag that first introduced her to global audiences.
The two artists’ nominations arrive in a year that has seen MTV quietly retire the Best Afrobeats category after just three editions. Introduced in 2023, the award had become something of a lightning rod for debate among Nigerian fans, particularly after South African star Tyla won it in both 2024 and 2025, beating out nominees like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Rema and Asake each time. Rema remains the only Nigerian to have won the prize, sharing the inaugural 2023 award with Selena Gomez for “Calm Down.” MTV has not given a public explanation for dropping the category, though the 2026 nominations list has also lost several other longstanding categories, including Best Album and Best Group, while Best Dance makes a return after years away.
With the dedicated Afrobeats box gone, Burna Boy and Tems are instead slugging it out in broader genre categories against some of the biggest names in global pop, hip-hop and R&B, a shift some see as a sign the sound has outgrown a niche label altogether. Madonna leads this year’s overall nominations with 11 nods, followed by Taylor Swift with nine.
Fan voting opened alongside the nominations announcement and runs until 6pm Eastern Time on September 25, covering 13 categories, while voting for Best New Artist stays open through the live broadcast. The 2026 MTV VMAs will be held on Sunday, September 27, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, airing on CBS with a simulcast on MTV.
