Civ 4 was released in 2005, but Christopher Tin's "Baba Yetu" didn't win a Grammy until 2011

Civilization 4 is an epic of a game. The strategy game puts you in charge of a settlement and tasks you with expansion: Do you conquer everyone else? Control most of the country? Go to the stars? Become a world leader? A game with such high goals must start strong. And for Civ 4, that meant starting with a musical epic: "Baba Yetu," the game's legendary title song created by freelance composer Christopher Tin.

Originally released in 2005 alongside the game, "Baba Yetu" has won praise far beyond the video game industry and will forever have a place in its history. In 2009, Tin put the song on his classic album, Calling All Dawns. This inclusion made "Baba Yetu", which Time Magazine called a "stunning, anthemic theme song", eligible for a nomination at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards; on February 13, 2011, it won, making "Baba Yetu" the first piece of music composed for a video game to win a Grammy. (It won "Best Instrumental Arrangement with Vocals.")

Even today, it is still a big part of Tin's life. In May, Tin and the Washington National Opera hosted the "Christopher Tin Sing-In" with the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra—an event that invited singers (and players) to sing along to Tin's Civilization compositions. (Tin returned to the Civilization series with "Sogno di Volare" for Civilization 6, and has had a successful career as a composer in video games, movies, and elsewhere. You can hear his work in PGA 2K21, Splitgate, Civilization Online, and Karateka , among others.)