Ghana Music Awards, though instituted by an individual and ran by the individual's private company is not the sole property of the owners but the entire music fraternity. Because of this, every stakeholder and fans of music has the right to suggest to the organizers how they think things should go as far as getting together the awards is concerned.
Even though I would always commend the organizers for doing their best in organizing Ghana Music Awards, sometimes they take things for granted and that is affecting their work. In the first place, the process of nomination, especially that of this year's, is riddled with flaws. A critical analysis of most of the songs in the nomination shows that they don't qualify to have been nominated. If the descriptions of the various categories have been changed for this year, the organizers should have made it known to the public because the public also vote to decide (as we've been made to believe) who wins the public voting categories.
What is GMA's definition for 'song release'? They had said that the moment a song is released onto radio, TV or the internet it is OFFICIALLY released. But the question is that 'who monitors when a song is released'? There is no mechanism to show when a song was put out onto the music market. This is why every musician who wants their songs to gain nominations would lie about the time of release of their songs so they could gain nomination.
I am sure by now someone would say it would be too big a work for the organizers to have a system or software that will determine when a song is released, just as they responded when I said unregistered songs should not be nominated. The fact is that no one forced anyone to organize awards for a group of people but if it must be done, it must be done expertly well. You cannot create an awards scheme, devise category descriptions to it and not have any means of checking if the songs being nominated are either truly the property of the supposed owner or whether the said date of release is really true. And when one suggests that songs that have not been registered are not nominated, people start comparing GMA to some award schemes elsewhere, forgetting that this is Ghana and we solve Ghanaian problems with Ghanaian solutions. We have been overly indoctrinated to the extent that we cannot think on our feet to solve problems our own way.
Let to me alone, the Academy or the Board should seriously monitor songs and their time of release. They should take records of when songs are released so that if someone comes to lie about their release dates, they are able to cross check. Recently, I read that Mark Okraku had on Happy FM, defended the inclusion of Kumi Guitar who per the VGMA category descriptions don't qualify for the New Artiste of the Year that, the new artiste of the year description for the year 2014 had been reviewed.
On Rainbow Radio, I heard Nii Ayite Hammond of Charterhouse say that the category descriptions had not been changed. The contradictions in what these Board members say tell clearly that all is not well with the VGMAs. To me, some of the Board members need to be changed. There are some Board members who have gone rancid while others owing to their long service on the Board have arrogated activities of the awards to themselves as though it belongs to them. This is why some musicians have found themselves in categories they don't qualify for.
Having studied the nominations carefully, it is clear that the Board members had favoured some people for nomination because probably these musicians have representatives on the Board. I say it again that Joey B and Kumi Guitar are not new artistes and that their nominations for the new artiste category should be revoked. The lies must stop. The organizers of GMA should come out and tell the public the real truth and stop the machinations. The nominations have too many mistakes in them so should be re-worked on.
There are thousand and one wiser music buffs in music industry that can do the job better job for the Board. It is about time those who have gone stale on the Board are supplanted. With that, there will be new flavor to the whole awards scheme and the 'string pulling' by the Mugabes on the Board will stop.
Elvis R Baidoo
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