I expected Shatta Wale to win Artiste of the Year - Knii Lante

Dr and musician Knii Lante has waded into the controversies surrounding the recently held Vodafone Music Awards which is in its 19th edition by saying that he expected Dancehall artiste Shatta Wale to take the prestigious Artiste of the Year award.

The awards held on Saturday 14th April at the Accra International Conference.

The VGMAs came under a lot of criticisms after the event when some industry players said that some people didn’t deserve the awards they won.

One of the artistes whose name has come up as not deserving of the award she won is late Ebony.

Ebony won the enviable and most prestigious Artiste of the Year award and also set a record as the first female artiste to have won the award.

A few days ago controversial movie director Socrate Safo also shared his opinion on Ebony’s win and said he thought Fancy Gadam did better than even Ebony.

Speaking to TV Africa’s entertainment desk reporter, the Director of Creative Arts, responsible for Programmes & Projects at the Commission for National Culture stated that the highly animated and energetic Tamale based artiste, Fancy Gadam was his pick for the category of artiste of the year – per the definition of the category – and not the much touted, highly anticipated and eventual winner, the late Ebony Reigns.

“I think that even somebody like Fancy Gadam was robbed of one key category which is the artist of the year. Per the definition of artiste of the year… if you look at the definition, Fancy Gadam stands poles apart from all the nominees there,” He opined.

“Can you pinpoint any of the nominees there including the ultimate winner, Ebony who did half of what he [Fancy Gadam] did?” He quizzed.

The latest to add his voice to the ongoing debate is Knii Lante. The musician was contributing to the morning show hosted by Kafui Dey on his impressions about the 2018 Vodafone Music Awards when he said even though Ebony worked hard the year under review, he was of the opinion that Shatta Wale should have won the Artiste of the Year category.

“With no disrespect to Ebony, she has been big the whole year, probably got the biggest things trending and hits around, but since these awards are popular awards, I’m sure the numbers went in favour of Ebony, and this is a popular award scheme so there is no problem with that, but I thought Shatta Wale would have taken it. He drops hits and everywhere you go, street side, I mean I saw school children singing his songs and things like that”, he said.