Music awards spark controversy

Controversy has ensued over the 16th edition of the Ghana Music Awards nominations list after it was announced in Accra Friday night at a ceremony attended by key industry players.

Misgivings have been expressed about why some names were missing in some of the categories as well as the justification for placing certain songs under categories they ought not to have belonged.

The enviable Overall Best Artiste of the Year category is being competed for by Daddy Lumba, Stonebwoy, Guru, Edem, MzVee, Sarkodie and Samini.

Sarkodie had the highest number of nominations in the 25 categories, followed by Edem and Stonebwoy who seems to be having a jolly good time, with a lot of people tipping him as a very strong contender.

Reggie Rockstone and VVIP

The hiplife Grand Papa complained that his song with VVIP, ‘Selfie’, had been placed under the hiplife category whereas the song, according to him, is a hip-hop song.

“‘Selfie’ is not a hiplife song; place it anywhere except hiplife. I am the originator of hiplife and I know what hiplife is. ‘Selfie’ is not hiplife but the VGMA Board, on their own, decided to place it under hiplife although we submitted the song for the hip-hop category,” Rockstone complained after the announcement of the list.

SAMINI

Samini’s nomination for the Reggae/Dancehall Artiste of the Year category has sparked a huge public debate, with many asking which Reggae or Dancehall song qualified him for that category.

Indeed, his hit track, ‘Iskoki’, was surprisingly placed under the category of Hiplife Song of the Year, disqualifying it from the Reggae/Dancehall category.

A more critical look at the list, however, shows that Kaakie and Episode both have nominations for Reggae/Dancehall Artiste when they did not have any songs competing for Reggae/Dancehall Song of the Year.

AKOO NANA & CASTRO

Akoo Nana was also seen fuming and almost caused a scene after the nominations list was announced and his hit track with Castro, “Mi Yadaw”, was missing from the list.

Akoo and many others believe “Mi Yadaw” was popular within the calendar year and made enough impact to have earned it at least a nomination. There were speculations that Akoo’s recent brawl with Charterhouse, the organisers, may have caused his elimination from the list though he had a mega track.

Several pundits have also questioned Castro’s absence from the Artiste of the Year category though he enjoyed a huge audience appeal and had some hit tracks in 2014.

Chase Forever

The smooth singer has expressed disappointment with the 2015 nominations for Ghana Music Awards.

According to him, the nominations were a reflection of claim that the awards ceremony is based on popularity rather than an award scheme which seeks to honour and encourage talents.

This musician gave this as the reason he did not make it on the nominations list of the 2015 edition of the awards ceremony.

When contacted on Saturday, Chase told NEWS-ONE that to him the awards ceremony was ‘not credible.’

“…Ghana Music Awards or whatever; I think is not credible to me because I feel like the people who really work hard never see the light of day in that place.

“It is just for a few people who are shining… It is like a popularity awards. You take the Grammies; somebody like Beck was nominated and people here don’t even know who Beck is, to the extent where Kanye West was able to say that Beck does not even deserve it. It is not a popularity award, you understand. People actually sit down and write music, so can’t you take your time and listen to songs word by word? … They don’t know what they are doing. And if the song sounds exotic or foreign you must still sit down and listen to it. It is not acapella; there is a producer who worked on it, and there is an engineer who worked on it,” he expressed his disappointment for not getting on the nominations list.

GALAXY

Another major disappointment that has been expressed is how Galaxy, the most popular duo on the music block, did not make it to the Best New Artiste(s) of the Year category. Galaxy, under the calendar year, had its hit song, Holla At Me, all over the airwaves and the group played a lot of shows yet did not make the list.

That category had names such as Episode, Pappy Kojo, MzVee, Emelia Arthur, Wiyaala and Vybrant Faya competing for the award.

Best Collaboration of the Year

As per the category definition of Best Collaboration of the Year, the two or more musicians who came together for that collaboration ought to have generated a huge public impact and appeal. It is therefore shocking that the VGMA Board settled on gospel song ‘Alpha & Omega’ by Selina Boateng, featuring Uncle Ato, for this category.

It makes it look as though the Board was only doing the gospel fraternity a favour rather than nominating the song based on the strength of its collaboration.

Such a decision gives credence to the complaint from Akoo Nana with regard to how his collaboration with Castro, “Mi Yadaw”, did not make it though it made a huge impact in the calendar year.

Amazingly, the VGMA Board decided that ‘Alpha & Omega’ by Selina Boateng featuring Uncle Ato made more impact than “Mi Yadaw” by Akoo Nana and Castro and therefore nominated it to compete with ‘Koene’ by Edem featuring Ice Queen and Lil Shaker, ‘Baby Dance’ by 4X4 featuring Davido,

‘Adonai (Remix)’ by Sarkodie featuring Castro, ‘Seihor’ by Castro featuring D-Black, ‘Love Rocks’ by Sarkodie featuring Samini and ‘Baafira’ by Stonebwoy featuring Sarkodie.