Samini for another award

Ghana’s reigning artiste of the year, Emmanuel Andrew Samini is once again set to spice up his career and hoist Ghana’s flag high with the receipt of yet another award.

The MTN ambassador, who has already won a number of awards at home as well as the Best Africa Music Act at the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) awards in UK, told Beatwaves in an exclusive interview last Monday that he had been nominated for another Best African Act Award category in Nigeria.

This, according to him, would be part of an award ceremony christened Hip Hop World Awards, scheduled for March 15 in “Naija”. Samini had his initial nomination as a solo artiste in 2005, won two awards as new hiplife artiste of the year and the overall new artiste of the year with his maiden “Dankwansere” album at the Ghana Music Awards (GMA).

He won another MOBO award - Best African Musical Art - in UK in 2006. His flair for music paid off in last year’s edition of the GMA. Out of six nominations, the singer who is described as the “king of African dancehall”, carried home four awards including Artiste of the Year, African Pop Song of the Year, Reggae Song of the Year and Record of the Year with his second and still reigning project titled “Samini”.

The same year he was nominated for the internationally acclaimed Best African Act award category at the Channel O Spirit of Africa Music Awards and MTV Europe Music Awards held in Johannesburg, South Africa and Munich, Germany respectively.

He however could not win these awards, which largely depended on public votes. This year, however, he is expected to increase the tally in the Hip Hop World Best Africa Act award nomination.

Whether he wins it or not, the “Kpoi” signature man said, “awards are usually to make you see how hard you are working but I don’t really put all my hopes on awards.”

According to him, he is now devoting most of his time to his new project which hopefully would be fully ‘cooked’ before the first half of this year, with some interesting surprises. Though he would not reveal all the surprises, Samini said he was featuring world acclaimed music group Steel Pulse. This, he noted, was just a tip of the iceberg.

He as well confirmed his manager’s assertion that he had stopped miming. “Miming has never been a thing I supported when I started music. Now that we have the chance to play live we must put miming to the past”, he disclosed, adding that he had reliable groups like the Shabo and Megastar bands, who always and would assist him perform with live band.

Reacting to criticisms that he poorly performed at Decemba 2 Rememba organized by CITI FM last year, Samini said he thinks it was because he came on stage late, and that it was not his doing.

He said by the time he got on stage most of his fans were tired and could therefore not enjoy his show. He however said he had taken the criticisms in good faith and would work harder.