KAMPALA – Ugandan local entertainers and their fans are currently filled with excitement following the good news that the Pearl of Africa was confirmed to host the seventh edition of the MAMA awards come February 2021.
This will be the first time Uganda will be hosting the awards function and the second time as East Africa at large after Kenya.
During the virtual launch of the awards, Gagamel International C.E.O, musician Moses Ssali alias Bebe Cool revealed that hosting the awards will help Ugandan artists and the whole music industry to rate itself generally.
“I am so happy that the MAMAs are in Uganda to help us rate our music industry in general. And two, they also help us rate ourselves and say okay, Nigeria can be 10 times bigger than Uganda but the MAMAs are here and I’m in the MAMAs right now,” he shared.
Bebe also shared about his 2015 nomination in the awards saying it was a great achievement for him since they showed him how the local industry was getting closer to the Nigerian counterparts and it revived hope among the artists who follow him.
For the past couple of years, we have seen several local artists opt out of the locally organized awards citing unfairness and bias.
After the launch of the 7th edition of the MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs) in Uganda on Wednesday, TNS singer Sheebah Karungi also requested local awards organizers to emulate the internationally recognized MAMAs, how they organize and host their events.
Sheebah advised local awards organizers to always take their time when staging the awarding function in Uganda so as not to reward artists with awards that they do not deserve.
She demanded that if they could, they would decide to join forces and at least come up with one major combined function at least once a year and give out awards to only the deserving artists rather than holding a number of these awards.
Sheebah opined while giving her idea on what ways to end the trash talk about the local awards.
The MAMA awards were established in 2008 by MTV Networks Africa to celebrate the most popular contemporary music in Africa.
One of the most exciting editions of the MAMA awards (in a Ugandan perspective) happened in 2015 at a ceremony that was held at the Durban International Convention Centre, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on July 18th in commemoration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday.
In that year, several Ugandan artistes were proud to share the limelight with big icons making it on the nominations list and others were invited to make celebrity appearances.
Jose Chameleone was pitted against the likes of Samini, Asa, Black Coffee, 2Face Idibia, Anselmo Ralph, Fally Ipupa, HHP, and D’Banj – who won the award – in the MAMA Evolution Award category.
That same year, Bebe Cool’s ‘Love You Every day’ was nominated in the Video of the Year category, something which raised arguments on who should keep the award, between the singer and the videographer, if it’s won.
Well the awards are finally in the Pearl of Africa however the question that remains is whether the pandemic shall have ended by February 2021 so as to have several international celebrities in Kampala instead of a possible virtual show – especially because the concerts and music shows are still banned by the government as a measure against the rapid spread if COVID-19.
