Song of the year – in Ghana music awards 2002
How all the nominees wish they knew which of them would be
named the winner of Song of the Year, the highest prize in Saturday’s Ghana
Music Award 2002 event. Will it be Lord Kenya or ADaasebre Gyamenah or Ofori
Amposah or Gospel All Stars? Nobody knows except only a couple of officials of
KPMG, the event statisticians, who will only release the names to the MCs on
stage on Saturday.
“We are not privy to the results of the voting,” Mrs.
Theresa Ayaode, the Chief Executive of Charter House Productions, the
organisers told Showbiz. “All four contestants for The Song of the Year award
will have to come prepared to sing their song if it wins.”
It has been the tradition of Ghana Music Awards that the
winner of The Song of the Year will have to sing that song live after receiving
his or her award. Daddy Lumba sang Aben Wo Ha in 2000 and Kojo Antwi sang Tom
and Jerry in 2001. Which will be the final song this year? Will it be Asew or
Medo or W’aseda Nie or You Can’t Touch Me?
Of the four contenders, Lord Kenya and Ofori Amponsah are
neck-to-neck with five nominations each in various categories, Daasebre has
four and Gospel All Stars has two. But keen observers of music awards point out
that all over the world the number of nominations a musician earns has nothing
to do with who wins the ultimate and most prestigious Song of the Year award.
Besides Song of the Year, categories that are certain to
create substantial speculation are the Hiplife Song, Hiplife Rap and Hiplife
Album awards. These are where the musicians with the most presence today
belong. Here belong names such as Slim Buster, Tic Tac, Lord Kenya, Obrafour,
Buk Bak, Obuor, Abrewanana and Omanhene Pozo.
Similarly expected to draw a lot of speculation are the two
gospel music categories: Gospel Song and Gospel Album awards. Here, names such
as Esther Amoako, Jane & Bernice, Gospel All Stars, Judith Lomotey and
Francis Adjei come up prominently.
Sadly, Ghana’s own highlife music category is not so
strongly contested. The Highlife Song of the Year is being contested by Nana
Tuffuor with Sanbra; Oheneba Kissi with Ama Frema; Nana Fynn with Menkoaa and
Nana Quame with Menko Meda.
But the new upbeat highlife category which go by the title
Contemporary Highlife is quite a hotbed considering that Kofi B, Oheneba Kissi,
Daasebre Gyamenah and Ofori Amponsah are all expecting to pick the award. This
trend may confirm the widely held belief that the traditional highlife of Ghana
is dying despite arguments to the contrary that new experiments of highlife are
only offshoots of the old highlife which will survive for all time.
It is going to be difficult for anyone to determine which
woman singer has the best voice in Ghana today. Is she Esther Amoako,
Abrewanana, Judith Lomotey or Jane & Bernice? They are in the race for the
Best Female Vocal Performance award. Their male counterparts vying for Best
Male Vocal Performance are Buk Bak, Ofori Amponsah, Nana Quame and Daasebre Gyamenah.
For some observers, the category Traditional Song of the
Year may stick out as being invalid considering the works which have been
nominated for the award. Unlike in the past two editions of Ghana Music Awards
which nominated real traditional music for the awards, the current list
comprise pseudo traditional songs.
These are Maba by Rex Omar, Doctor a Declare by Osuani
Afrifa, Kente by Akatakyie and Ekomamo by Nkasei. None of these songs is
traditional in the real sense as they do not fit any traditional performance
mode. Just using a traditional beat for a song does not automatically make it
traditional.
Be it as it may, in all 21 awards will be up for grabs by 35 nominees on Saturday. Fifteen of these awards were arrived at by public voting and the remaining six are special category awards. The special awards comprise Recording Engineer of the Year, Recording Label, Songwriter, Music Video Directing, Original Song and - Fontomfrom merit Award. – Graphic Showbiz
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