A spokesperson for the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA), Francis Doku, has offered an explanation as to why for the first time in the history of the award scheme, the ‘Group of the Year’ award category was scrapped ahead of the 2022 awards show.
Per some news sources, Francis Doku explained that the board arrived at that decision to scrap the category because, “the relevance of music groups has dwindled”, a situation he says has persisted for the past years. Therefore, there was an overwhelming call by the Board to drop the category ahead of the show.
Many have argued that there are no guidelines for the VGMA that states any category could be scrapped if no artists or songs meet the criteria. Responding to this, Mr. Doku disclosed that, the Board has the power to make changes as and when they found it needed and cited examples of how the Board has altered various categories over the years, according to news sources.
The nominees for the 2022 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards were released on Saturday, March 19, 2022. After the list was released, a lot of entertainment fanatics and key stakeholders in the entertainment space expressed shock as to why this year’s categories did not have a slot for ‘Group of the Year’.
Scrapping of ‘Group of the year’ category unfair to R2Bees
According to the VGMA board, the ‘Best group of the Year’ category is “the artists adjudged by the Academy, Board and the general public as the group with the highest audience appeal and popularity”. They must comprise of at least two or more members and must have released a hit single or album for the year under review.
Per the criteria given by the Board, some music fanatics have argued that the decision made by the VGMA board is unfair to music duo, R2Bees, considering the fact that the musicians performed well during the year under review. The music duo released an album, ‘Back to Basics’, which has fifteen songs including their current hit, ‘Ekorso’.
It can be recalled that in 2013, the Tema-base duo, R2bees won six awards, including ‘Group of the Year’, making them the highest award winners for the night. It is worth noting that they also managed to grab the ultimate award for the night, ‘Artist of the Year’.
In 2014, they defended their title as ‘Group of the Year’ until VIP took over from them the following year. VIP defended the title for three consecutive years. However, in 2018, Wutah made a terrific comeback and took over from VIP. Unfortunately, Wutah couldn’t hold on to the title for another year as Bethel Revival Choir won the tile in the 2019 edition of the awards show.
Bethel Revival Choir in 2020 gave up their title to music duo, Dope Nation. Dope Nation even though had a stellar year after winning the award, couldn’t match the energies of Keche as they took over from Dope Nation. Keche are currently the reigning winners of the ‘Group of the Year’ award. For now, it is not yet known how long they will be holding unto that title as that category has been scrapped off.
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