THE HEADIES 2016: THE MOST LACK-LUSTRE EDITION YET

The Hip Hop World Organization owned by young Nigerian entrepreneur Mr. Ayo Animashaun are the organisers of the Headies, an annual music award ceremony which seeks to reward and encourage talents in the industry. The Headies which started off originally as The Hip Hop World Awards in 2006  and later got a name change, prides itself to be "Nigeria's Grammies" .And it seems to have been holding its own in this regard as it remains the "biggest music award event" in Africa perhaps. This is despite the dwindling economic fortunes of the country and the attendant obvious reduction of sponsorship.

The Headies which held this year's edition last night has had its fair share of problems, hiccups and controversies as is expected for any emerging business (its just 10 years old). However, by now a great deal of improvements were expected to be seen by many in terms of organization, delivery and credibility. But many have expressed their displeasure at what went down yesterday at the event. There was still lack of adequate coordination between awards and performances leading to long awkward breaks.

The much expected improvements which the organizers traditionally promise every year are still not there. Instead there seem to be a downward trend raising fears among music lovers and artistes who are always looking forward to this event as to what the future holds.

The stage in a previous edition

The event was almost marred by the conspicuous absence of most of the notable players in the industry perhaps as a fallout of the "credibility questions" raised by a disgruntled artiste on stage last year who used some abusive language on a fellow artiste and the organizers, dropped the microphone on the floor and stomped off the stage. The angry musician/producer Olamide was vexed that his protege Lil Kesh did not win the 'Next Rated Award" which comes with a brand new car prize and is considered the "juiciest" category. The award instead went to Don Jazzy"s (another producer's) artiste Reekado Banks.

So it was with keen interest that observers, fans and artistes were watching to see what will happen in this category especially after the organisers had earlier announced they had disqualified one of the most favoured-to-win nominees, Tekno Miles for not "participating in pre-event activities".

2016 EDITION'S HOSTS

With the "disqualification" of Tekno the next in line should have been Humblesmith another nominee whose hit single "Osinachi" has been featuring prominently in the Nigerian airwaves. But it was not to be as the organisers instead went for a relatively unheard and unknown Mr. Eazi! That surely was one of the numerous low points of the evening.

Perhaps the only high points were the two occassions Dare Art Alade came out to speak while receiving his awards (Recording of the Year and Best RNB Single) for the song "Pray for Me" and when Phyno came out for his Song of the Year award for the song "Fada, Fada" though he spoilt the hype with his "no speech" gesture after walking all the way to the stage to receive the award.

In all last night's edition of the Headies has gone down as the most lack-lustre edition and it is our hope and prayer that this past one will remain the worst Headies ever and that subsequent editions of the "Nigerian Grammies" will only get better and better.