“I Wish Them Their ‘Yawa’ Awards”-Kwaw Kese

The ‘mad’ man, Kwaw Kesse (real name Emmanuel Botwe) who was the first to trash this year’s Ghana Music Awards nomination has thrown another jab at the organizer of the event, this time describing it as a ‘Yawa’ (literally meaning Bogus) Awards.

Abodam said this during an exclusive interview on Peace FM’s Entertainment Review” programme. Kwaw, who is currently holidaying in America told the host of the programme, Kwasi Aboagye from his Washington DC base, that there was too much “Kuluulu” in this year's nomination.

He also explained why on February 26th, the day of the launch he tore into pieces the nomination list at Gold Tulip Hotel in Accra. “When I went through the nominations - I said to myself - No! This is not the Ghana Music Awards I know - the whole thing seemed like a big joke to me. There are several songs which made waves in the past year but they were not nominated, so I saw that there was some bias going on”, Kwaw stated.

When Kwasi asked Kwaw, what was going on which he considered as bias or ‘Kuluulu’ he said “If you take a look at the panel who sit down to nominate and categorize the songs, you realise there is big time ‘kuluulu’ going on, how can someone like KOD, Hammer of ‘The Last Two’ and Kiki Banson be part of the panel when their artiste are in contention for this same award? He asked.

He said there will be conflict of interest in the decision they take at the committee level and this will not be fair to the other musicians like him who do not have any representation on the committee. Kwaw also wondered why his 12 tracks “Ma Kwan” which fall within the calendar year for awards could not get even one nomination.

“Are they trying to say that my album which I launched on the streets and sold over five thousand copies on July 15, 2009, does not deserve to be nominated? I am not saying I want to win an award but my song deserves to be nominated, so I don’t understand why I was not in the nomination”, he complained.

The ‘Odeim’ hit maker also said he thought Mr. David Dontoh (Ghanaman) who has been part of the Ghana Music Awards planning committee since its inception eleven years ago does not deserve to be there. “If we want people to judge music or determine which song has to be nominated, we have to take someone who knows more about music, not an actor or someone who performs in a concert party”. When Kwasi prompted him if he was aware that in 2007 when he won six awards KOD, Hammer, David Dontoh and the other names he mentioned were all on the committee, he said he doesn’t know about that but even if they were on the committee, they don’t deserve to be on it this year's award for obvious reasons.

He revealed that before the nominations came out, KOD went on Radio to state that his artiste “Wutah” must win an award; “what song did Wutah release, how popular was their song and how many shows did Wutah perform to be nominated for the artiste of the year? I think throughout last year the only artiste who deserved the artiste of the year award is Sarkodie.

He finally advised Charter House to sit up and take the event more seriously. “Ghana Music Awards, should back up, it is about time they grow. It is really bad that when I won the awards, all these people were laughing with me. After the awards they are now saying that because I won in previous years I don’t deserve to win again.

What are they talking about? Beyonce has several awards but anytime she deserves it, she wins again. So, this is what is on their mind and it is very bad. Well, I greet all Ghanaians back home and their ‘Yawa’ awards” he concluded.