The Moon Person for Best Afrobeats no longer exists. MTV quietly dropped the category from the 2026 Video Music Awards lineup, ending a three-year run that only ever handed the trophy to two artists.
Rema and Selena Gomez took the inaugural award in 2023 for “Calm Down,” and Tyla followed with back-to-back wins in 2024 and 2025, first for “Water” and then for “PUSH 2 START.”
That means the entire history of the category fits inside three names, and now there will be no fourth winner.
MTV has not released any statement explaining the decision. The cut is part of a wider restructuring that retired nine categories total, including Best Pop Artist, Best Rock, Best Group, and Album of the Year.
The timing is awkward, to put it mildly. The removal lands right in the middle of a live industry conversation about how Western awards shows handle music from the African continent, and whether dedicated regional categories help or quietly limit the artists placed inside them.
Tyla herself has been vocal about this tension throughout her wins. She repeatedly pointed out that her sound draws from Amapiano, Pop, and R&B, and that collapsing the continent’s wildly different genres under one “Afrobeats” umbrella does not really capture what any of these artists are actually making.
That argument cuts both ways, though. Critics of the category’s removal will say that dedicated visibility for African music on a stage like the VMAs matters, especially for newer artists who benefit from the spotlight.
Supporters of the restructuring might counter that true integration means competing directly in the main fields rather than being separated into a regional bracket.
The 2026 nominations suggest some of that integration is already happening in practice. Burna Boy picked up two nominations for “Dai Dai,” his World Cup collaboration with Shakira, landing in both Best Collaboration and Best Latin. Tems earned a Best R&B nomination for her feature on Dave’s “Raindance.”
So African artists are present in the 2026 lineup, just without a dedicated home. Whether that reads as progress or erasure depends entirely on who you ask, and the conversation is far from settled.
The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards air live on September 27 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, broadcasting on CBS and MTV with a stream on Paramount+.
