macquis:
According to Wikipedia an award is something given to a person, a group of people, or an organization to recognize their excellence in a certain field; more like a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons.

In the Nigerian music industry today, the
Headies is undeniably the most recognized indigineous music award.

Established by the Hip Hop World Awards in 2006, the Headies is an award that recognises outstanding achievement in the Nigerian music industry.

Every year for the past nine years organizers of this prestigious award have without doubt put smiles on the faces of a privileged few. All through the years recipients of this music award have felt loved and appreciated as it became clear to them that their hard work and dedication towards the craft was heavily applauded.

Ever since the year 2006 when organizers of the Headies began honouring Nigerian music artistes, the Nigerian music industry has boomed. The industry has evolved. Artistes of different musical backgrounds and orientations have sprung out, giving us a new feel of what music is. If you are someone who makes out time everyday to listen to radio stations in Lagos, say Smooth Fm or The beats Fm, you will agree with me that there have been times when a particular song was played, you enjoyed listening to the song. At the end of the song the Radio presenter hopped in and to your amazement announced that the song you just listened to was sung by a typical Nigerian. I’ve experienced such several times, don’t know about you. We call what such music artistes do Alternative music. That’s because It doesn’t conform to the traditional or conventional music style of a certain society, but it’s nonetheless music. In Nigeria today we’ve got a host of music artistes experimenting with genres as soul, jazz, pop, rock and funk. The issh there’s that these artistes are treated as though they don’t even exist.

The Headies and it’s Organizers may hold the spot of being the most prestigious Music Award in the country, but that’s not to say they are without flaws. Our music industry is where it is today because moulders of the industry like Ayo Animashaun and his band of biased industry experts continually promote a certain set of music artistes and a certain form of music during every award ceremony. In their opinion, if your song isn’t popular on the streets, then it doesn’t even deserve a nod. Sometimes I wonder if the Grammy Awards would be what it is today if it did not embrace, recognize and honour artistes of every musical genre including Gospel.

I checked this year’s Headies Awards nomination list and was appalled to see the sought of categories in which awards were to be dispensed. As usual it was lame and promoted only the famous Nigerian music artistes, forgetting that those on top are not always the best out there.

I’ll present an analogy to buttress my point. In the Olympics, the greatest sporting event on earth, there are several categories, every sporting category is recognized and honoured. Sporting events as Soccer, Basketball, Lawn tennis, Table tennis, Cycling, Swimming, High jump, Hand ball, Car race, etc all belong to different categories, and athletes who participates in any of the above categories and come out on top are awarded in accordance with their categories. The medal conferred on an athlete from the soccer category is no greater than the one conferred on an athlete from the swimming category. All this happens because the organisers of the Olympics are wise enough to understand that every field of sport is honourable no matter how flimsy and insignificant it might appear to be.

I dream of a period in our music industry when every music genre is embraced and promoted; when artistes doing Alternative music are recognised and honoured no less than the artiste who does the usual Nigerian sound.

Source:
https://blarckbillboard./2016/11/17/organizers-of-music-award-shows-in-nigeria-should-fix-things/

Yinkey6:
Honestly I agree with you.

tammyboy1:
must you quote the whole thing? Haba

tammyboy1:
must you quote the whole thing? Haba