Samas show hip hop growing
THE nominees for this year’s SA Music Awards (Samas) reveal a changing line-up and music landscape increasingly populated by new and exciting young artists.
Twenty-year-old rapper Nasty C is fast becoming the most prominent artist in the country and his seven nominations, more than any other artist, build on his recent success at the Metro FM Awards this year. His nominations, and those of Kwesta who follows close behind with six, indicate that hip hop is continuing, if not extending, the dominance it has had over the past three or four years. The fact that the best video of the year category features only hip-hop artists – Khuli Chana, Miss Pru, Nasty C (twice) and Reason – also shows that the genre is not only dominating the audio landscape, it’s also leading the pack in terms of visuals.
A few weeks ago, the Samas took the bold decision to release the list of entries for this year’s awards show to generate hype and speculation around who would make the nominees’ list. That hype and speculation was in full view with the subsequent social media misunderstanding of some artists who thought the entries’ list was the final nominees’ list.
At Thursday’s nomination party, held at Destiny Exclusive Hotels in Kempton Park, the place was packed with celebrities, media and other VIP guests. The 700 entries for this year’s spectacle, which is back at its old home, Sun City, is a big increase from last year’s 470. There were some surprises, including on the kwaito nominees’ list which strangely featured superstar Babes Wodumo. Notable absentees were former big winners Cassper Nyovest and Emtee, who have been relatively inactive over the past 12 months. A gaffe on social media that saw the Samas mistakenly include Nasty C in the best female category comically reignited speculation that his controversial ANC-affiliated record label Mabala Noise was “buying” awards after this year’s Metros.
When I spoke to Nhlanhla Sibisi, chief executive of the Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA), last week he explained the distinction between the two awards ceremonies and how the SAMAs have generally steered clear of such controversy by employing a panel of judges and independent auditors to verify results.
“When you have a panel of experts sitting and listening to music and then judging it individually, it creates an environment where people are able to listen to the album and judge it accordingly,” Sibisi said.
“The other distinction that is very critical is that it would be impossible for the SAMAs to be voted on because most of our categories are albumbased. So if you start going the voting route you will end up with albums that have one song that is kwaito and the rest jazz winning a kwaito category.”
The top 20 shortlist for the record of the year category was revealed on SABC1’s LiveAmp on Friday, with Black Coffee leading the pack with two nominations: Come With Me featuring Mque and Your Eyes featuring Shekinah.