VGMAs killing musician’s career – Gospel musician

Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs) which apparently is the biggest entertainment event in Ghana is in a hot chase as musicians keep questioning the credibility of the awards especially its 19th edition. Last Saturday at the Accra International Conference Centre, musicians, actors, TV, and Radio personalities converged to celebrate the crowning of musicians who worked so hard in the year under review.

Though it was a night to celebrate, most musicians as expected went home dissapointed.

In an exclusive interview with one of the hardworking gospel musicians in Ghana, Bra Paul of Tetelestai fame, the artiste accused charter House of killing and frustrating talents in Ghana. To him, Charter House, the organizers of the annual Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA) though the most enviable award scheme in Ghana has contributed massively to the collapse of artistes’ careers over the years.

“I commend Charter House for a successful event once again but, I believe they are doing the opposite of their aim which I know is to reward and encourage musicians to work hard in order to put the Ghanaian music on international platforms. I am a concerned musician and I can’t just keep mute on some of this issues.

Though I am not a secular artiste, I don’t think I would be encouraged to do more if I was Medikal who after being nominated in about seven different categories but won none. The mockery he had after the awards alone can deter him.

Take Patapaa and wutah last year, which songs were bigger than theirs in the category they found themselves? Why this frustration VGMA?

Many musicians have given up on their careers after an award scheme(VGMA) which should be rewarding efforts failed to recognize them, this alone is frustrating.

In fact, I was shocked last Saturday with some of the results I heard, this is Just not fair to some of our hard working musicians. It’s about time we set up our own award’s scheme as gospel musicians because the kind of treatment we get every year is just uncalled for. They always bench us together with these secular acts in the same category and in the end, give all the awards the secular artistes creating the impression that, gospel musicians are just lazy.

In the year under review, my song (Tetelestai) together with Patience Nyarko’s ‘obi nnyani me’ and Akwasi Nyarko’s ‘bo mpae’ made the most waves as gospel songs but in the end, Akwasi Nyarko and myself weren’t nominated and now Patience didn’t win an award? This is shocking.

We are building industry together but with such untruthfulness, we will only collapse as an industry and I am very worried about this trend” he explained.

The gospel minister further encouraged all musicians not to lose hope anytime they are ‘mafied’ by Charter House.

“I would like to encourage my fellow musicians to not to give up anytime they are denied any award, let’s keep working harder and the Lord himself will reward us in the good time” he concluded.