Over 10,000 music lovers from all the corners of Kumasi trooped into the Kumasi City Mall to come and witness live, great musical performances from their various artists. All the important people who have a stake in Ghana’s Music Industry were also present.
Charterhouse, organizers of the annual Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, officially launched the 20th edition of the awards’ ceremony yesterday.
Nominees for the various categories of the awards were also released yesterday on some selected TV and radio stations, with social media being the focus.
Whoever thought that a day like this will come in the history of Ghana music where notorious Dancehall musician, Charles Nii Armah Mensah aka Shatta Wale will be hailing, praising and bootlicking Charterhouse, Ghana Music Awards and their CEO Theresah Ayoade?
We woke up today, and Shatta Wale has posted a picture of himself and the CEO of Charterhouse Theresah Ayoade all over social media and subtly behaving as if she is the best person he has ever met in his musical life.
The Ghanaian music group, Wutah has for the second time in their musical journey split with the group members Kobby and Afriyie concentrating on their solo careers once again.
The music duo was arguably the best musical group in Ghana in the early 2000s as their smash hit single ‘Kotosa’ won a number of awards at the 2009 Ghana Music Awards.
Reign Album Art Cover Arguably, Charles Nii Armah Mensah Junior aka Shatta Wale, the founder and leader of one of the biggest movement on the continent of Africa ‘Shatta Movement’ is Ghana’s biggest Dancehall Musician. Charles started his journey as Bandana in the early 2000s but circumstances beyond his measure and lack of proper structures in the Music Industry sent him into the wilderness or relegated him to the very bottom of the Music Game. He went into Musical hiatus for over a decade.
Arguably, Charles Nii Armah Mensah Junior aka Shatta Wale, the founder and leader of one of the biggest movement on the continent of Africa ‘Shatta Movement’ is Ghana’s biggest Dancehall Musician.
Charles started his journey as Bandana in the early 2000s but circumstances beyond his measure and lack of proper structures in the Music Industry sent him into the wilderness or relegated him to the very bottom of the Music Game. He went into Musical hiatus for over a decade.
The South African rapper, David Junior Ngcobo, better known by his stage name Nasty C, who recently gave a poor account of himself at the 2018 Ghana Music Awards, has been declared by Starboy Wizkid as the best rapper in Africa at the expense of Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie. Despite the fact that opinions are like noses, this comes as a surprise to the SarkNatives taking into consideration that fact that Sarkodie remains the most awarded and decorated African rapper. They believe the Ghanaian rapper should have been cited regardless, especially when the South African Cassper Nyovest recently acknowledged Sarkodie’s influence on the continent.
April Fool’s Day was Ghanaian radio and television icon Berla Mundi’s 29th birthday and rapper E.L appreciating the hard work of Berla Mundi celebrated her on Twitter. Rapper E.L showered some praises on Berla Mundi by describing her as “Special, Hard working, determination, audacity wrapped in Beauty”.
The annual Vodafone Ghana Music Awards took place last night with Stonebwoy winning the top Artiste of the Year Award. The event which was hosted by actress-Joselyn Dumas and Nathaniel Attoh dragged on for over 6 hours—and it was badly produced. If you want to know what went down, CLICK HERE for our review + … Read more
It’s obvious that Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs) is the biggest awards scheme in Ghana at the moment. For the past 15 years, Charter House (organizers of VGMAs) have been awarding outstanding Ghanaian musicians, as well as other African artistes.
One thing that the organizers have not been able to run away from is the hullabaloos surrounding the whole awards scheme. At least one musician would have some grievances to voice out each year.
One of such musicians is the reigning VGMA artiste of the year – Shatta Wale. Last year, Shatta Wale did not make it to the conference center where the award was held because Charter House could not come to terms with him on the amount he wanted as performance fee.
This resulted in a whole lot of uproars in the Ghanaian media. This has pushed the self-acclaimed dancehall king to inform Charter House that he does not want to be part of the award scheme this year.
Ghana’s finest rapper, Sarkodie, was also in the news few days ago. According to him, Charter House had used his name to promote the award when they had not paid him the performance fee he had requested.
First of all, let me mention that I am not much of a Sarkodie fan but I acknowledge and appreciate his hard work, dedication—and his ability to have succeeded in an ‘industry’ fully soaked in weakness.
When it comes to Charter House, I really don’t like big companies or corporations, because they always screw the small guy up—and over the years, I’ve said the lack of competition and the ‘monopolistic’ status of Charter House is somewhat turning them into an industry demi-god. Going against their flowing current means you should expect to be shunned, banned or marginalised—and that is the definition of TYRANNY.
Now that I have made it clear that I do not necessarily admire Charter House or Sarkodie though I respect their success, let’s dispassionately consider the substantive issue which many have missed in their discussion over the recent Sarkodie-Charter House brouhaha…
It all started when Sarkodie took to social media to rant over the violation of his personality right—using his name or image for a commercial purpose without his consent or agreed compensation. This is both a statutory and common law violation, which means, Charter House did not just erred when they did that to Sarkodie (irrespective of their compelling reasons), they also broke the law…
Sarkodie had every right, be it moral or legal to be upset of this considering how hard he has worked without any industry support to obtain his current musical status. His fans see him as some sort of Hiplife god and to be frank, he is—more like Ghana’s version of Kanye West.
For this, insults, rants and blows went the way of Charter House from the fans and even some established Ghanaian artistes. Legally, I supported Sarkodie for the simple fact that, Ghanaians continue to take the piss out of people’s intellectual property rights and personality rights on every scale.
Yesterday, Charter House-organisers of the annual Ghana Music Awards were compelled by Ghanaian musician-Sarkodie, his fans and the many Ghanaian bloggers who jumped on the issue of the company’s usage of the artiste’s name as a performing act in this year’s Ghana Music Awards without his consent or any contract.
It’s interesting how this is playing out on twitter—if it was in the United States or United Kingdom, the artiste would be in court, seeking for the appropriate damages. If a big event company such as Charter House does not really give a hoot about what the law says at any point in time, what do you expect the smaller event organisers to do—and more also, are they not the same organisation in court seeking to have the law in action in relation to the Shatta Wale’s defamation case?
That is the sort of irony grounded in the way Charter House seems to be operating.
There is law to enforce when someone violates one in relation to them but they seem to continue to violate the same law (in other form) when dealing with others.
All around the world, the law is pretty simple on this; “a person shall not use any aspect of an individual’s persona for a commercial purpose…The person’s persona could include his or her name, voice, signature, photograph, image, likeness, or distinctive appearance, if any of these aspects have commercial value”.
In their apology press release, Charter House said;
“We would like to expressly state that Sarkodie IS NOT performing at the 16TH VODAFONE GHANA MUSIC AWARDS. Prior to this, we had been communicating and had met with a member of his management team trying to arrive at a favourable figure.
In anticipation of that figure coupled with the unstable power situation in the country plus the long Easter weekend ahead of us, where it would be almost impossible to get a studio to record, we worked ahead and recorded different versions of the 16th VGMA’s final event radio commercial.
One with Sarkodie’s name and another without. With our fingers crossed, the ads were all submitted to our media manager. Unfortunately, we were unable to come to a favourable agreement and parted ways amicably.
Our media manager was immediately informed on Thursday evening to send out only the ad that DID NOT HAVE Sarkodie’s name. This, she did except for YFM, where she sent the wrong ad which had Sarkodie’s name.
Clearly, it was an error from our end which we have totally admitted. We hereby unreservedly apologise to Sarkodie, his management friends and fans as well”
You can see from the part I have ‘bolded’ that Charter House seem to suggest that they honestly erred with the audio commercial by sending out a wrong one, and not that they had a clear intention to infringe on Sarkodie’s personality right, but from the billboard above—their explanation falls flat on its face.
Looking at the billboard, it shows images of Sarkodie and Samini performing and as such, there should not be arguments such as the two having been used on the billboard as nominees for the awards publicity—the obvious inference or message the billboard sends is that; the two will be performing at the Ghana Music Awards 2015.
Fred Kyei Mensah, a respected sound engineer, arts analyst and also a member on the VGMA board, has admitted that the board erred in the cause of their works – the nomination list.
Mrs. Ayoade made the point that though the board detected that there were some issues with some of the categories due to the changing times with technology, it was too late to make any bold changes to the nomination list before releasing it.
“We detected after the board’s work that there were some issues, developing trends has set into the industry but at that time, it was too late for us to do any bold changes because we had a few days to announce the nominations.
We had to exercise our discretion (as in, release the nomination list) with the view that after the scheme, we would have a general review and then explain the challenges we had with some members of the industry as we normally do, then, we would evaluate it (the new trends) properly to see if it’s a one way situation or a growing trend in the industry.
At the end of the award, we shall do a total review and take into consideration the trends that have come. The last time we reviewed the nomination list was 2 years ago.” She said.
According to Mrs. Ayoade, some of the things that they shall change/review in the award scheme include: Album of the Year, Release of Song – its definition, and New Artiste of the Year.
Fredyma, who is known for his honest opinions, admitted that the board erred and pleaded for sympathy, “we admit certain things did not go well and that is the criteria definitions. Forgive us! We shall make all the necessary changes. We thank the media for all they have said.”
So per cognitive logic, it means the VGMA board, knew the nomination list is fraught with errors even before the release of the nomination list, yet, when it was released and critics raised issues, some members of the board defended every issue that was raised; to the extent that some even had verbal confrontation with critics on live radio and television.
Despite all the critiques at this year’s VGMA nomination list with some pundits pointing at evidence to disqualify some artistes or songs, the board has concluded that they shall not review the nomination list; yet, they shall make changes in the award scheme come 2015.
On Monday 31st March, 2014 GhanaCelebrities.Com got in touch with Nii Ayitey Hammond who is the Chairman of the VGMA Board and asked him if the board will still review the nomination list.
In his own words, he opined “as I speak with you, the board has not decided to review the nomination list; so that is what we stand by” Mr. Hammond said. According to Mr. Hammond“so far none of the evidence brought before the board are strong enough to make us disqualify any artiste or song in the nomination list.
All that they have said or presented represents opinions; their opinions for that matter. The board does not deal with opinions but facts. Real facts! Any person who presents real facts shall be considered by the board.”
On Tuesday 1st April, 2014 when GhanaCelebrities.Com’s story was reviewed on Neat 100.9 fm’s ‘Entertainment Ghana,’ hosted by Kwasi Aboagye, PRO of Charterhouse confirmed GhanaCelebrities.Com’s earlier publication on Monday. Ending, George assured “Kwasi, next year, there will be major reforms in VGMA. There will be definitely major changes next year.”
On Wednesday 2nd April, 2014, when the same story was discussed on Channel R’s ‘205 Total Entertainment,’ this time round, board chairman, Mr. Hammond confirmed the board wont review the nomination list – 2014, but, “we shall review things in the VGMA come next year.”
