African Music Awards? Pleaase!!

If you’ve seen our Facebook status lately, you must have seen our rant against the organisers of the African Music Awards held on Sat 17 Oct at Troxy, London. The evening was a fiasco. First I have to state that I didn’t stay the whole night. My comments are based only on what I saw between 9pm and midnight.

Doors that were supposed to open at 7.30pm were still closed when I arrived at 9pm with my guest. We were left out in the cold without any explanations or apologies. A lot of people left there and then. My guest and I stayed, her rather disillusioned, me still hopeful. We got in the venue at 10pm, grabbed seats  and watched the “show”. What the organisers described on their website as the show to end all shows consisted of performers lip synching to their tracks (most of them) on a tiny stage decorated with huts – so much for contemporary Africa! The Michael Jackson tribute would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so bad: a low-rent MJ look-alike and wannabe dancers executing poorly choreographed routines. Eve and Youssou N’Dour were supposed to be there. I never saw them; the only high profile star that showed up was Egyptian singer Amr Diab. Lee Jasper (!?) introduced the winner of the Hip Hop African act… only that it was in fact the award for the Artist of the Year… But at that point, no one truly cared.  Click on [Read article] on the right to read the full post…

The venue was half empty, the crowd was subdued and only came alive thanks to Eddie Kadi’s jokes. We left at midnight, quite furious at ourselves for believing that an event labelled as “African Music Awards” put together by someone with a mixed track record (the AMAs 2008 were a fiasco) could deliver.

I had interviewed Eric McKaiser, organiser of the AMAs before the show and asked him bluntly what he intended to do to dodge the problems that usually plague that type of events. He assured me that they had taken measures to prevent any problems and that all the stars listed to appear and perform would be there on the night. You can read the full article here.

http://www.catchavibe.co.uk/the-2nd-african-music-awards/2967/

Today, conveniently, the AMA website contains only a holding page promoting next year’s ceremony:
http://africamusicawards.com/

Even more surprising: there is a flyer on Facebook announcing that next year’s event will be bigger and will be held at the O2!? On Saturday, the Troxy which has a maximum capacity of 2600 seats was half empty. The O2 seats 20 000 people. The Facebook event can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=42031359303&ref=mf

We’re all for supporting initiatives by black people but that doesn’t mean that we should turn a blind eye to the actions of some organisers who don’t seem to care about the artists they are supposed to promote or about the audience either. What is most damaging is that there is a public for African stars such as PSquare or 2Face but events such as this are giving them a bad name.

So I’m asking the organisers of the AMA: what happened? Where were the stars you announced that were supposed to grace the red carpet? This is your chance to reply.

To anyone else: feel free to leave your comments.

4 Responses to “African Music Awards? Pleaase!!”

• Tracey,

  Thank you for your comments. It would have been helpful if you had included links to the reviews published by the BBC and the Daily Mirror. I made a search and could not find anything. If the reviews were so glowing, I’d expect to see them on the AMAs website: they are not there.

  I tried contacting Eric before publishing my review, to get his side of the story. He didn’t reply and no one in his team offered an explanation.

  I am African and believe that we can do better than the shambles that was the AMAs. If you feel proud of supporting that kind of event, then good for you. We simply do not have the same standards. I do wish them all the best for this year’s event though. I sincerely hope they will prove me wrong and deliver an outstanding event.

  Feel free to investigate Catch a Vibe and share your findings with the “world”.

  Alice,
  Editor – Catch a Vibe

  Alice says
  May 7, 2010 at 10:31 pm

• Do you see the reason why Africans can’t prosper? Cheap articles like this from Catch a Vibe or whatever their name is, prevent people like Eric to put us on the map. Shame on whoever wrote this article. As a journalist myself, I was at the event and I saw Tinchy Stryder, Michael Essien, Dwain Chambers etc having good time. So stop the cheap attention u want for your cheap medium. How can the Daily Mirror describe the event as “fab” and the BBC describe it as “world class” and yet “pull him down” elements like you still find work to do. Shame on you. I’m gonna investigate this so called Catch a Vibe and let the world know how perfect they are….Shame on you.

  Tracey says
  May 6, 2010 at 6:02 pm

• We supplied the lighting and speakers for the event and we are still yet to be paid a very large invoice! We are unable to contact Eric Mckaiser as he no longer answers his phone or replies to emails.

  Ria says
  December 9, 2009 at 11:17 am

• I actually heard a radio interview on VOA(Voice of Africa) where Eve herself confirmed her appearance. She said she would be there, so at this stage, I am thinking something went wrong, but the organisers did not mis-represent. They should have at least made an announcement however.

  christian says
  October 21, 2009 at 6:10 pm