THE GRILL: VGMA 2017: THE OOHHS, THE AAHHS, AND A CASE OF HE ...

THE GRILL: VGMA 2017: THE OOHHS, THE AAHHS, AND A CASE OF HE ...: Just last Saturday, April 8 th , the much awaited Vodafone Ghana Music Awards came off at the Dome of the Accra International Conference Ce...

THE GRILL: GHANA MUSIC AWARDS: THE GOSPEL DOMINANCE SO FAR

THE GRILL: GHANA MUSIC AWARDS: THE GOSPEL DOMINANCE SO FAR: Since the inception of Ghana Music Awards in 2000, there have been much complaints as to why Gospel artistes have not been able to win the ...

GHANA MUSIC AWARDS: THE GOSPEL DOMINANCE SO FAR

Since the inception of Ghana Music Awards in 2000, there have been much complaints as to why Gospel artistes have not been able to win the topmost awards, despite the good stuffs most of them had released and submitted for the awards. Just last Saturday, Gospel’s own Joe Mettle changed the face of the game when he won the artiste of the year award. This is a record as far as Ghana Gospel Music is concerned. This article seeks to identify some other records that have been chalked by some gospel artistes at the Ghana Music Awards so far and how gospel music has fared as far as Ghana Music Awards is concerned.
 

GMA 2001: In 2001, Cindy Thomson’s Cindy’s Messiah stood head to head with Daughters of Glorious Jesus’ ‘Nea Ye Hu’ and managed to sweep awards for the two gospel categories plus the Best Female Vocal Performance Award, at the second edition of the Awards. It was an achievement that gained Cindy much respect as far Gospel Music is concerned; and till date ‘Cindy’s Messiah’ and ‘Nea Ye Hu’ are two of the best Gospel albums ever to have been recorded by Ghanaian Artistes.

GMA 2003: In 2003, Esther Smith, then a debutant repeated Cindy Thompson’s feat by winning two out of the three gospel category awards, plus the Best Female Vocal Performance awards with her ‘Gye No Di’ album.

GMA 2004: In 2004, Daughters of Glorious Jesus made a strong comeback with their ‘Aseda’ album. The year 2003 had been a very competitive year for the gospel music industry in Ghana, seeing the debuts of Sandra Oduro with ‘Yesu Ayonkofa’, Ama Boahema with ‘Bue Kwan’, and Christiana Love with ‘Holy Ghost Int. Vol 1’. Daughters however proved their dominance on the gospel scene when even prior to the GMA, they won the Our Music (OM) Award for the year 2004. At the Ghana Music Awards 2004, the group swept five awards including the Overall Album of the Year, and Best Female Vocal Performance awards. It was the first time a gospel Artiste had picked up any of the three top awards. It was also the first and only time a Gospel artiste had won more than three awards at a GMA event. It is therefore not surprising that ‘Aseda’ by Daughters of Glorious Jesus is till date  one of the best –if not the best- gospel album by a local artiste.

GMA 2005: In 2005, Esther Smith made a comeback with ‘Nnipa’ album which won her another three awards, but this time exchanging the Best Female Vocal Performance award for the Album of the Year award. This makes her the first gospel artiste to have won awards with two consecutive albums at the Ghana Music Awards. It also makes her the gospel artiste with the highest number of GMA awards so far.

GMA 2008: The year 2008 saw many artistes boycotting the Ghana Music Awards due to distrust in the selection board. At the event, Ohemaa Mercy’s ‘Edin Jesus’ won her three awards including the Album of the Year, out of the eight nominations she garnered. Kwaw Kese however outshined her with five awards.

GMA 2008: Pastor Lenny Akpadie with his ‘Most High God’ swept the Gospel song of the Year, and Most Popular Song of the Year awards. It was the first and only time that a gospel artiste had picked up the Most Popular Song of the Year Award.

GMA 2009: Bernice Offei won two awards, namely Best Female Vocal Performance and Song Writer of the year. This was the first time a Gospel artiste had been recognized for his or her song writing prowess.

VGMA 2017: Joe Mettle made an outstanding record by picking up one of the three top awards, the Overall Artiste of the Year, which also happens to be the most coveted award for the event night. This was the first time a gospel artiste had picked up this award.

Summary of Records GMA Gospel

Daughters of Glorious Jesus are the Gospel artistes to have won the highest number awards on a GMA night, and also the first gospel Artistes to have won the Album of the Year award.

Esther Smith is the first gospel artiste to have won awards with two consecutive albums, and also the gospel artiste with the highest number of GMA awards.

Ohemaa Mercy is one of the only three gospel artistes to have won the Album of the Year award.

Pastor Lenny Akpadie is the first and only Gospel Artiste to have won the Most Popular Song of the Year Award

Bernice Offei is the first gospel artiste to have won the Song Writer of the Year award.

Joe Mettle is the first and by far the only gospel artiste to have won the Overall Artiste of the Year award.

VGMA 2017: THE OOHHS, THE AAHHS, AND A CASE OF HE WHO LAUGHS LAST…

Just last Saturday, April 8^th, the much awaited Vodafone Ghana Music Awards came off at the Dome of the Accra International Conference Centre. This marked the eighteenth (18) edition of the biggest music event in Ghana.
 

Prior to the event, there have been much misgivings and dissatisfaction with the nominations. The artiste who seemed to have enjoyed massive airplay during the year under review, Kofi Kinaata missed out on two of the most important categories of the year, the Most Popular Song, and Artiste of the Year. A new artiste, Medikal however seemed to attract the favour of the board in garnering a total of eight nominations in seven categories, including the Overall Artiste of the Year. On the gospel side, Diana Antwi Hamilton was nowhere to be found (probably because she made no submission). Nacee on the other hand garnered nine nominations for both gospel and secular works.

If nominations were anything to go by, then Nacee and Medikal were tipped to be the highest winners of the night; however, Charterhouse just seemed to enjoy surprising music fans and artistes.

At the end of it all, Kinaata went home content with three of the awards he was nominated for, which included the songwriter of the year award, and Nacee went home with one award. The surprises of the night were Medikal who went home with EMPTY HANDS, and Joe Mettle who swept three awards being the Gospel Artiste of the Year, Best Male Vocalist, and the much coveted Overall Artiste of the Year (the first time a gospel artiste had won the award). So you see, not every first laugh is a good laugh… Kudos to Kofi Kinaata and Joe Mettle… We look forward to more good stuffs from you.

Something fresh, Please

Is it not absurd how some of our gospel artistes take us for granted? All they care about is to just do the old songs we know, mess them up in the name of repackaging, and spew them into our ears. Even if you want to record a cover of an old tune, why don’t you just make it new in terms of arrangements, without messing them up? Skuulfo and Nacy did a good job on ‘M’aye Yie’. Vinepraise so far has done well in its covers of songs in terms of arrangements and selection of songs to go into a Long Play (LP). Other gospel artistes, the least said about them….

 It’s true, the Holy Bible is the main reference for gospel songs, but when an artiste creates a song from it, he or she becomes the rights owner of the song, unless such rights are relinquished to another individual or group. You can’t just pick up someone’s work and mess it up.

And come to think of it, do gospel artistes realize gospel songs are in categories as far as theme is concerned? The fact that a song is in a slow tempo does not necessarily mean it is worship. It could be thanksgiving, prayer, inspirational…. And a fast tempo song could also be praise, inspirational, prayer… If you think there is no prayer song in fast tempo, then listen again to Christiana Love’s (now Obaapa Christy) ‘Ahokyere ny3 d3’.

But on a more serious not, if you feel lazy to write a new song, how difficult should it be for you to research carefully old songs you wish to record cover on before hitting the studios to work on them?

Gospel Music; Not a Genre of Music

Reggae, Blues, Soul, Highlife, Hiplife, RnB, Afro-pop, Pop, Hip-hop, Country, Traditional folk, Crunk,… these are genres of music; Gospel music isn’t. When you talk about gospel music, you are precisely referring to the text accompanying the music. And when you mention gospel music, then you may be expected to mention secular music.

I believe the confusion stems from the fact that we keep referring to this as ‘Gospel Music’ instead of ‘Gospel Songs’. But tell me, should R. Kelly change the lyrics to his ‘You Saved Me’ to secular, does the genre of his songs change? Or should Kirk Franklin change the lyrics of his ‘Revolution’ from Gospel to secular, does the genre of the music change to Hip-hop? No. ‘Revolution’ has always been Hip-hop. Changing the lyrics from gospel to secular only makes it a secular Hip-hop, and not gospel Hip-hop.

Gospel songs are religious songs. Under the category of religious songs we have sacred music which is on its own a genre of music, since without the texts the music form is still identified. We also have ‘Black gospel’ or ‘Negro gospel’ which actually acts as the foundation of our gospel music today. The difference between ‘sacred music’ and ‘gospel music’ is that whereas ‘Sacred music’ is purely about God and his relationship with man, Gospel music is about man, his relationship with God, with his fellow men, and the society.

The issue is that Gospel music is adaptive; so unlike secular artistes who may stick to particular genres of music, gospel artistes are not bound by such rules. In Ghana, we’ve had Daughters of Glorious Jesus doing mostly funk, highlife –mostly fused with western culture-, Jazz and reggae; Christiana Love doing mostly Highlife and reggae; Cindy Thompson doing mid-tempo highlife; Soul Winners swinging on the wings of Highlife with Jama flavour; Tagoe Sisters with Highlife, and Funk…

The main purpose of Gospel music is to spread the gospel of Christ. Love God, and love thy neighbour as thyself. It is worthy of note that whereas as church songs can be referred to as gospel songs, not all gospel songs can be referred to as church songs. You want to know why? Try singing Christiana Love’s Yaree ye ya, Yaw Sarpong and Asomafo’s Asor no egu or McAbraham’s Hye w’akonoso in church one day.

So the next time you are referring to Daddy Lumba’s ‘Theresah’, Pat Thomas ‘Sika Ye Mogya’ or Amakye Dede’s ‘Handkerchief’ as Highlife, remember not to refer to Daughters of Glorious Jesus ‘Okokoroko’, Tagoe Sisters’ ‘W’atua Maka’ or Christiana Love’s ‘Me wrenfi’ as gospel. They are all Highlife, but in lyrics some are secular, while others are gospel.

STOP SCREAMING: WE CAN HEAR YOU

I wonder what comes into the minds of this new breed of gospel artistes when they set their feet into the studios to record their songs. The fact that the songs seem to bear no new message is not as hurtful as the fact that these artistes just do not mind breaking our ear drums. They literally scream their lungs out as though we cannot hear them when they sing like normal people do. I do not want to sound offensive, but this has gone on for a long time now, and even when listeners tend to complain, the artistes just do not seem to care; they simply can’t be bothered.

The likes of Daughters of Glorious Jesus (particularly Cynthia Appiadu), Tagoe Sisters, Pastor Joe Beecham, Rev. Thomas Yawson, Nana Yaw Asare, Cindy Thompson, Bernice Offei, Stella Seal, Mary Ghansah, have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that you do not need to be good at ‘screaming’ to hit your notes and get your audience to appreciate you.

Well, maybe this unfortunate occurrences stem from the fact that the artistes fail to realize that the main purpose of doing gospel music is for the message, and not necessarily for entertainment. It could also be that the sound producers are not helping the artistes to nurture their talents; so at the end of the day, we have lazy artistes going into the studios to compete with beats produced from high tech sound machines. I am not bothered when I hear some secular artistes screaming on top of their voices. They are known to make noise, and thus is no news. For the gospel artiste, lots of things need to be taken into consideration before making a song. The rise and fall of the music should be accompanied by the intended passion and emotion. You can’t just make it loud for loudness sake… Girl, boy, tone down a bit, for we really want to hear what you have to say to us… if you do not want to be bothered, then just do not bother us with your so called messages.