Reliable information reaching Peacefmonline.com indicate that “Sixteen Years” singer Mzbel (real name Belinda Nana Afia Amoah), is after Charterhouse, organizers of Ghana Music Awards, to mend all broken bridges and amicably resolve all past issues between her and the event management company.
It will be recalled that Mzbel, stated publicly in 2008 that she forbids Charterhouse or the Ghana Music Awards Planning Committee to nominate any of her songs or to use her images or voice in any future awards.
Since then Mzbel has never been nominated.
According to our sources, Mzbel is now signed on to a new management, Blossom Event Promotions, who have good relationship with Charterhouse and are insisting that Mzbel resolves her differences with Charterhouse, because the event management company is one of the strongest forces in show business in Ghana.
Though Mzbel herself has not made any efforts to contact Charterhouse, the leader of her new management team Irene Nana Aba Asante, made a call to Charterhouse a few days ago to initiate the settlement process.
When Peacefmonline.com contacted Mzbel, she said she had no personal problem with Charterhouse so there was nothing to settle. “The thing is, I have a new management team now and they seem to have a very good relationship with Charterhouse, so they think that if there is a grudge between me and Charterhouse, we should settle it, that is it,” she explained.
She added that she does not have any personal issues with Charterhouse because she even performed on their platform during the Cocacola Lighting event somewhere last year, even though she warned them publicly not to nominate her songs.
“So what my management said to me was that if there is any issue between me and Charterhouse we should sit down together with them and solve it once and for all, and then make it known to everybody that there is no problem anymore”.
Asked what problem she had with Charterhouse, Mzbel said it was not really a problem but a decision she made.
“They called me somewhere in 2008 to pick up a form and fill for my song “E Dey Bee”, and I told them that I didn’t want to be part of Ghana Music Awards, and my reason was that the same panel or committee members who nominated me, condemn me for using explicit lyrics and dressing badly, when they go on radio and during Television discussion programs. Yet, they tell people to vote for me to win an award. If you nominate someone for an award then it means that the person has something good, so then you don’t sit on radio and trash her. So I told them if that is what they are going to do then I will not do it that’s all. And I think they understood me because since then I have never been nominated, but the media blew the issue out of proportion”.
Speaking to Mzbel’s new manager, Irene Nana Aba Asante of “Movie Chat-Room” fame, she confirmed that indeed she and her team made some attempts to settle any differences between their artiste and Charterhouse.
“Indeed I don’t think there is anything wrong with knowing what is good for your artiste and then going on to pursue it. We want to introduce ourselves to players in the industry and obviously Charterhouse is a big player when it comes to promoting musicians in Ghana, so management’s decision was that we strengthen the relationship with Charterhouse”.
She confirmed that it is true she made a call to the offices of Charterhouse to try and arrange for a meeting between the two parties. “And there is nothing wrong with that because we are a very strong and positive management team and we will do everything to make sure her career grows from where it is now”.
Irene also indicated that they intend to lobby for Mzbel to perform on the main event in the Dome, at the Accra International Conference Centre.
Public Relations Officer for Charterhouse, Juno Abena Turkson, also confirms received having a call from Mzbel’s new manager Irene. “I can say officially that Mzbel’s management called me last Friday, and her issue was that she wanted to mend whatever bridges that had been broken in the past between Mzbel and Ghana Music Awards, but unfortunately I was on my way to Takoradi so I couldn’t speak with her extensively. I'm still looking forward to hearing from her again to really find out what we are looking at and how we can be of help to them”.
Asked whether Charterhouse has deliberately refused to nominate her since she made that statement, Juno answered in the negative and said “Fortunately or unfortunately her works have not come out strongly for us to get to the point where we would want to deal with her but, if we had, we would have found a way to talk to her and drop whatever issues that exist between us”.
As to whether Mzbel will perform on the main event, Juno said, it will be a purely production decision.
