The politics of music awards exposed

The new development in the gospel Mwafaka Awards, held last Sunday in Nairobi brings a new twist in the local entertainment industry. Mwafaka, an off-shoot of the premier regional gospel awards, Groove, started small and careful not to be seen as Groove’s rival, the organisers said they were only out to cater for upcoming artistes, not fully factored in Groove. That was five years ago. The truth is, a chunk of singers in the massive gospel industry felt side-lined by Groove that many felt had a leaning on artistes allied to System Unit and Mo Sound, the two movers behind the current success in the gospel industry in Kenya. As cartels developed, splitting the gospel industry right in the middle, the likes of MOG had major fallout with Groove and secretly, Tony, one of the MOG members who was seemingly suffering harsh treatment from Groove organisers joined Dydiero, a young events’ organiser, to constitute Mwafaka. In the last four years, many have seen Mwafaka as a passing cloud but the new developments and success that came with heavy sponsorship from the Angela Ndambuki-led Performance Rights Society of Kenya (PRiSK) and Safaricom’s Skiza Tunes deals a major shakeup in next year’s Groove and Mwafaka awards. For starters, Safaricom, who now seem to be embracing Mwafaka had been the main Groove awards sponsor, putting in mega cash to the tune of Sh30 million to sponsor the annual event. Two, the two events seem to be pitting PRiSK and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) against each other with PRiSK seemingly aiming to lock MCSK out of Mwafaka, that after MCSK maintained their support for Groove. And gospel artistes as well as cliques are now torn between which one to support in the new big-buck gospel entertainment front. And as the battle goes to the media where both rival parties are already trying to tie broadcasting deals for next year’s awards, a third force in the name of Xtreem Teeniez Awards has emerged. The Peter Mulei-led new awards are said to have the blessings of the Groove Awards organisers. The new battleground in this front is a healthy move that is expected to push the local entertainment to new heights at a time when the premier Kisima and the Chaguo la Teeniez Awards are, disappointingly, are on their knees. In fact, while the huge success in the gospel industry is now being pegged on the Kevin Mulei found Groove Awards support, the slumber in the secular sector is being blamed on the fall of Kisima and Chaguo la Teeniez awards, the two secular awards that challenged artistes to compete in terms of audio and video music creativity, with financial incentives to the tune of Sh1 million for the eventual winner influencing a major following. It is not only the fall of the two that has drained the secular industry- to the extent that some of its artistes are crossing the floor to the more financially lucrative and more mass friendly gospel sector. The sprouting of tens of mediocre secular awards by individuals who seem to fill the void Kisima and Chaguo left, yet with sinister motives, is a virus that can’t go without notice. Both Nzumari and Coastal Music Awards have over the years been criticised for what pundits termed as handpicking of nominees and winners. Some claim that Nzumari Awards winners simply collude with Queen Eve, who has all the say in the entire process, to get awarded. “That is not true. We have a panel of judges who run the nomination system and a private body that observes and qualifies the votes through a transparent tally system,” Queen Eve defends herself. Besides transparency, credibility questions cloud most of the numerous music, fashion, comedy, theatre and other showbiz-related awards with a general feeling that the organisers simply use the other players as endorsement platforms with unseen behind-the-scenes faces sharing the financial gains. “When you see an entire crowd grumbling in disagreement over almost a half of the winners picked in a music awards event, then, that means there is a problem. We have had cases where undeserving characters have been awarded simply because they bought their way. Some even go ahead to put up organising bills on behalf of the event organiser and then end up being rewarded with a win. This has compromised the standards. When you give an award to an undeserving person, we can only term the entire scheme as rotten tomatoes,” says Hassan Faisal aka Mr President, a Mombasa-based showbiz critic who is behind most of the entertainment events in the Coast. “When the credibility of music awards event comes to question, most of the genuine artistes pull out as they don’t want to be associated with a murky affair that would compromise their brand. That way, undeserving people end up being awarded. Now, that is part of the rot,” argues Big Ted, a veteran showbiz expert. “Even leading out the money issue where some artiste argue that there is nothing to gain once they win an award, if awards are well-organised with voting processes that are transparent and acceptable to all the players, even as small as they come, this would even in the smallest of ways help our industry grow,” he points out. In the worst case scenario, proper public votes will be cast but a ‘wrong’ winner will be announced and days later the organisers shall get a public backlash on social media forcing them to publicly apologise and announce that “There was an issue and that after a lot of deliberations, someone else was picked out as the ‘true winner’.” While this may seem rather obvious in an industry where a few celebrities will start awards up for their own benefits, the effects are quite detrimental. Nothing is more drastic than an artiste or celebrity onto whom false hopes have been vested. This kind of celebrity will go around bragging and thinking they have the best video in town simply because some “random awards event” gifted and pronounced them the finest. Simply put, pundits do argue that most of the entertainment awards schemes were are seeing now are not a true reflection of the industry and its growth but rather merely a facade of hopes and dreams out to impress the masses as organisers smile all the way to the bank thanks to sponsorship goodwill. These are the kind of events where celebrities will turn down nominations even before the voting process is officially announced because they are not able to keep up with the drama involved, and some of those nominated may never ask their fans to vote. Worse still there may be no proper voting lines. Deplorably there are same events where “to be winners” will send ‘representatives’ to pick their awards simply because at the end of the day, they are ashamed for being favoured and would hate to see the crowds booing at them once called out as winners. Then, so unprofessionally done, there are the kind of events whose red carpet line up session will read two hours but end up taking five, because even the invited guests lack regard for time, and worse still some may reluctantly resolve to show up last minute. In such arrangements, despite a distinguished guest’s invitation card boldly reading “VVIP” many celebrated guests are bound to find themselves sitting with the ‘commoners’ because no special sitting area was reserved. Worse still, the VIP and common space is simply the same with the only difference being the red carpet VIP entry. At the same time, the problem of having too many awards in the same industry with almost identical categories is that, nomination lists always end up looking the same. On the other hand those who miss out on awards ‘A’ will hastily vest their hopes on awards ‘B’ in the hopes that they shall at least scoop an award. “Everyone wants to be called the best, and the gospel is really suffering because they all want to scoop an award. Some are even looking for fame harder than they are spreading the word,” a leading secular artiste lamented. And just before you can laugh the drama that came with the Mwafaka (see Special Feature) the recently launched CHEKA Awards are yet another batch of awards which leaves even the nominated comedians in stitches too. “Those nominations are wrongly placed and it’s even worse because some well talented comedians missed on those lists,” a nominee pointed out. Despite the glitches in nominations, where some members complained of the nominations being unfairly categorised, run and distributed, it was recently announced that the awards would be moved two weeks ahead, from their initial date. The excuse given; respect to fallen theatre legends Jastorina and Derrick, which sounded so phony. The emerging of KEDAKA (Kenya Dance Krew Awards) awards that seems to be on the right path as the organisers seek to crown the finest Kenyan dance crews and the new Xtreem Teeniez Awards is also expected to stir up things. At this rate, everyone will soon be walking around with accolades to brag about. Some will be valid but others will be some new words you hear for the first time. So the next time a celebrity brags about winning an award you’ve never quite heard about, a quick search on Google will reveal whether or not the award is worth its mention. If not, it could have been the fakest award ever, the Kenyan version of the Razzie awards or simply a compilation of rotten tomatoes.