Where Is The Headies Headed With Nigerian Music? – Sampson Malachy

The most Prestigious Musical Awards in Nigeria “The Headies” recently announced its 13th Edition of the award having 23 categories with the nominated artistes names inclusive.

 

This event has sparked reactions from both critics and fans of the Nigerian Music. One of such that definitely caught the media attention with acute details is of South’s prominent Music Critic, BoomPlay consultant and AR,  Sampson Malachy who took to his facebook questioning focus of the Event and it’s credibility in quote.



Below is what he says –

 

HEADIES AWARD 2019 – Where Is The Headies Headed With Nigerian Music?

The Headies Awards formerly known as Hip Hop World Awards is one of the most prestigious Musical Awards in Nigeria and nominations for the 13th edition has just been announced with this year’s edition of the award having 23 categories. The presentation of the award show is scheduled to hold on the 19th of October 2019.

 

Here is my opinion on the nominations.

 

WHAT IS LYTA DOING ON THE LIST?

One of the rudiments for nomination is that your song must have been released between January 2018 to June 2019 and this takes me to my first question: When was Monalisa by Lyta released? It was released 11th July, 2019 and the only song that he had that seem big is ‘Time’ which he featured Olamide. he was also nominated again for Best Street Artiste of the year. How did that happened?



If we can recall Lyta’s exit from his former label – YBNL (It was about him not popping and getting attention at the moment and maybe not adequately being promoted which the label stated that they work with a calendar and timing for their entire artistes).

Monalisa became a big song when Davido decided to support and collaborate with him on the song and if we are to follow the criteria of January 2018 to June 2019, Lyta has no business to be nominated for the Headies Award 2019.

 

WHERE IS NAIRA MARLEY?

You may not like Naira Marley, but you can’t deny the impact and influence of his music to the culture and the scene. ‘Issa Goal’ is one of Nigeria’s biggest song and was the Super Eagles unofficial anthem for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the song featured Olamide and Lil Kesh. Cocoa Cola adopted the song for its campaign and ads during the World Cup. And each time the Super Eagles scored a goal we all sang Isa goal, Isa goal! What about the most controversial song of 2019 – AM I A YAHOO BOY which was released in May, 2019? Naira Marley has grown and he is now a force to reckon with in the Nigeria Music Industry, he deserves a nomination.



BEST HIP HOP ALBUM WITHOUT BAD BOY BLAQ AND TALK ABOUT POE?

This is one of the categories that got me sad. What on earth will make anyone omit these two projects BAD BOY BLAQ by BLAQ BONEZ and TALK ABOUT POE by LADIPOE? Talk about content and numbers, these albums have it. Meanwhile, let’s not forget that BADBOYBLAQ was nominated as Album of the Year at SoundCity Awards. Blaqbones has played a very vital role in engaging and reviving the Nigerian Hiphop scene. He released two amazing projects – BAD BOY BLAQ and BAD BOY BLAQ RE-UP.

Ladipoe on the other hand has been doing amazing too. We have only 4 nominations in this category, which means there is room to make it 5-6 nominations to recognize the great work LADIPOE and BLAQ BONEZ are doing.

I will try to ignore the Best Rap Single category that has unpopular songs on it. One of the criteria for nominations for a rap single is radio airplay and how popping it was.

 

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR! CRAYON AND BUJU OVER SOFT, TCLASSIC, TERRI AND KING PERRY?

Crayon is a fine and very promising artiste that is signed to Blow Time Entertainment, an imprint under Mavins Record in May 31th, 2019. His biggest song, SO FINE was released in July 2019. This means it did not meet up with the January 2018 to June 2019 benchmark.



BUJU released ‘Commander’ in April, 2019 and the song didn’t really pop until the release of SPIRITUAL which he features Zlatan and the song is gradually getting attention. So both Crayon and Buju songs and numbers can’t be compared to that of Soft, T-Classic, Terri and King Perry.

 

Soft gave us bangers upon bangers from ‘Tatoo’ which he featured Davido to ‘Killa’ which he teamed up with Yemi Alade to one of the biggest song of the year – ‘Money’ which became a street anthem and later went on to do a remix with Wizkid.

 

T-Classic has dropped two big songs; FALL IN LOVE featuring Mayorkun, and NOBODY FINE PASS YOU. These songs are successful and T-Classic deserves to be nominated in this category.

 

Terri and King Perry deserve to be on the nomination list because of their songs Work n Grind and also MURDER which King Perry featured Teni and both songs are doing well in the street and has received applauded response from listeners and the media. While Terri‘s BIA and ON ME have also made statements in the scene. It is worth knowing that both artistes deserved to be nominated in the Rookie of the Year category.



LAGOS TO LONDON PROJECT WAS IGNORED!

Lagos to London Volume 2 is one of Nigeria’s biggest Afrobeats export to the world and the project had some big songs which include SURRENDER ft Simi, MISS YOU BAD ft Burna Boy, PROPERTY ft Mo-T and LONDON TOWN ft Giggs. Mr. Eazi got only one nomination that’s the Viewer’s Choice Award and definitely this is not enough for what he has done and the huge numbers he has gotten from streams.

 

WHY SLEEP ON REXXIE?

REXXIE is popularly refered to as the brain behind the Zanku wave, with production credit on most of the popular songs owned by Zlantan and Naira Marley. He produced ABLE GOD for CHINKO EKUN, LIL KESH and ZLATAN. He produced LEG WORK and JOGOR for ZLATAN. He also produced AM I A YAHOO BOY?, SOAPY and a whole lots of songs ( producer with a number of bangers in his debut season).

Not nominating him is like denying that ZANKU MUSIC doesn’t exist and we can’t lie to ourselves about this because almost every kids know how to do the leg-work and you can’t recognize ZLATAN without recognizing his producer. It is bad.



We are all looking forward to the Headies Award 2019 and I am glad that a few of the alte’ boys were at least nominated and recognized for their efforts and I wish a post-humous award would be given to the late B. Elect for his tremendous contribution to the hip-hop community in Nigeria.

 

 

SAMPSON MALACHY

is a Music Business Executive, who is in the business of helping Artistes get mileage and make money off their music.

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