Awards are supposed to exist to make
industries better, to recognise the hard workers for the year and push others
to work hard so as to get their acknowledgement...to assist everyone in
bench-marking. Each and every year for four years now, ZHHA does the opposite. I
would like to blame them for the 6 month industry silence that we had this
year! Who wanted to work when the only overall industry recognition was biased?
ZHHA 2014, just when we thought that
ZHHA had given us progress, Beefy and his team showed why they are the best at
what they do. Heck, they've been doing it for FOUR years...that's experience!!
ZHHA 2014 looked promising, having
had not too many complaints on the nominees’ side (lack of complaints could
have been our “they should just do whatever, not like they ever listen to us
anyway..) This year they really tried in that department. Of course there’s
always one or two, but the generality of it was that they did well with the
nominees. Their job was of course made easy by the lack of really ground
breaking, relevant Hip Hop for most of the year.
The fans and the artists didn't
disappoint, everybody dressed up for the night. Everyone was looking beautiful
as they always do...the rain tried to ruin the mood but hey, it wasn't going to
spoil our awards night..That's Beefy's job.
First awards of the night were well
deserved awards, McPotar (who had by far the most consistent blog in 2014),
Sindiso Dube, Mark Vusani, DNA...these were all very deserving award winners.
The problems came with the awards everyone came to see.
Unlike last year where we had a
publicized panel (though they dropped out at the 11th hour) we kinda knew who
was responsible for the decisions, this year we certainly didn’t know. We
must've missed the memo. Noise broke out in the last quarter of the awards,
artists and fans alike chanted "BullSh*t! BullSh*t!" and we can't
blame them.
PUSHzw would like to take this moment
to thank HAKEEM for doing what no one else who went on stage would do. Saying
what most people felt was the truth. Who needs Kanye?? However, to say that
Tehn Diamond deserved what Peekay isn’t exactly something we would stand to
agree with, Ma One Vs Simudza Gumbo? (bearing in mind that its awards for 2014)
These are the categories where we
think the noise erupted from, and where we think Beefy and his awards did his
thing:
BEST DIASPORA: Rhyme
Assassin. Sarai muchiita Digest that.
BEST ALBUM: It went
to Blood Money Jacob - POY. Look, it was a good album, good, content wise but
also an album people didn’t hear. How much of it was played on Radio? (which we
believe is part of the criteria for nomination) How much of it did people hear?
The Category had Albums like Masofa Panze
2 and the Many Moods of Trae Yung
all with better airplay and content that was just as good. Our winner of the
night though should've been THE MMT LP. That album was so good most of the
music of the night was from it! How else could you get people bumping if you
didn’t play the MMT LP? It had great songs that went viral a good quality
product. You would think that after the great introduction Stunner gave the
award, ZHHA would have respected people enough to give it to the rightful
winner.
BEST NEWCOMER: PEE
KAY. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this one because we don’t know what criteria
they use for Newcomer. We remember very clearly a song with PeeKay in it more
than four years ago, when he was still skinny, Ill Ceey was still secular...and
Ill Ceey was still Ill Ceey. PeeKay with Illceey on Blue Jeans is from when we
were in high school, and now it’s been a year since we graduated from Varsity
and they give him BEST NEWCOMER. Utter F$#ckery! This award had fresh blood
more deserving of a chance to be recognised and they gave it to the guy who is
probably a lotta rappers' role model. Young Bulawayo rapper Cal_Vin was killing
it, Nash Da King, had a good song this this year, Masofa Panze 2 artist Noble
Stylz was on fire...and the awards panel killed all hopes for new acts. Who
knows next year, they might put Xndr, Junior Brown or BETTER, the Major
Playaz!!
BEST FEMALE:
BLACKBIRD. What?? I mean “what?” Put your hands in the air if you heard more
BlackBird than Trae Yung this year or any BlackBird actually, No takers? We
thought so. Hanzi nhingi akapihwa award ranhingi.. #NDIKOKO. Plus, Blackbird is
very Loud pa mic...barely survived with our ear drums. But she did tell us that
she is the only rapper on Channel O from Zim… ah well!
PEOPLES CHOICE: Tricky
J, The boy had a really good song, and if numbers don’t lie, the he won because
more people voted for him than your artiste of choice, If you want your
expression felt on this one, GET MORE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR YOUR ARTISTES!
What still pisses us off about ZHHA
1.
TIME, Gosh, if you say you
shall start at 1900 then start at 1900, at least at 1930, not TWO hours late,
AGAIN!
2.
VIP, nominees, free for
all…we will only be serious about it… for the first hour of the awards
3.
SOUND..SOUND…SOUND..
4.
If they don’t treat these
awards with the importance that is due, neither will we!
5.
Can you switch off the
lights,… switch off the lights!! This should be all cleared at rehearsals
folks.
6.
Control your people, the
audience becomes rowdy, irritable and plane simple out of control. This
happened last year too
The Good bits
1.
Turn out, maybe the smaller
venue gave it a better effect but it’s cool to know we have fans
2.
The visual aid for the and
nominee list call out was a little more organised this year
3.
Back drop, smile and take a
picture, don’t we all just love feeling cool!
4.
The drama moment had a
slightly lighter side to it, though it was really disappointing, it did make
for a somewhat, moment of entertainment
5.
Free Style battle, short,
precise and we all liked the winner. Together with performances from Calvin,
High Definition, Amard, they did put in great work. Team Bho always with something
surprising on stage. It’s all hip hop.
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