#MTVMAMA-WHY WAS EAST AFRICA LEFT OUT?!
By Byaruhanga
Felix (@TheNinjaFelix) – Dissatisfied Blogger and Music Fanatic & Kyle
Duncan Kushaba (@uptownkyle) - Dissatisfied Media Journey man and
Recording Artiste.
Last Wednesday (16th April 2014) MTV Base
announced the 2014 nominees (see full list here) for the MAMAs after a 3-year break. First
of all congratulations to all the sponsors, a big thank you to the
sponsors and the team at MTV but we as East Africans, we are not
satisfied in the least.
So let’s focus on the
nominees; this year has Nigeria with the most nominees, as usual (11
out of the 15categories) including the non-musical categories, and
then followed by South Africa. East Africa managed to scoop only four
nods (Sauti Sol, Amani, Diamond, Radio and
Weasel) which left us with a lot of
unanswered questions. What does this mean for East Africa?! What are
the chances that East Africa was left out in most categories? Does
this mean East Africa isn’t at par with the rest of Africa when it
comes to producing quality music and videos that surpass the MTV Base
standard or are our artistes not creative/hardworking as we thought?
The answer is definitely NO!!!! And a resounding NO.
Look at guys like
Navio (Uganda), Octopizzo
(Kenya), Victoria Kimani(Kenya), Keko
(Uganda), Ruyonga (Uganda),
Ommy Dimpoz (Tanzania),
Vannessa Mdee (Tanzania)
and many more. These guys have worked their asses off but MTV doesn’t
recognize that. WHY?
Probably someone
reading this is thinking that yeah East Africa had nice music but
they considered music between March 20th
2013-March 19th
2014 and also airplay of the songs on MTV Base; you are right and we
put that into consideration. When you do some digging for example for
the artistes we have mentioned above they released some great material
within that time frame and amazing stuff at that. As for airplay
those artiste’s songs did get some heavy rotation some ended up on
the MTV Base countdown, on the MTV Base website. The songs went ahead
to get airplay on other Africa’s music channels like Channel O,
Sound city and Trace Urban. So why does East Africa have few
Nominations?
It’s Business Nothing Personal.
So
we dug in and realized MTV is pretty much a business organization
that cares where it cashes in the most!
At the end of the day
we will have to come down to numbers, are sponsors and the team at
MTV getting their worth?! As of 2012 East Africa (Uganda, Kenya &
Tanzania) has over 22Million internet users all together while
Nigeria has over 48Million users and South Africa over 8million
users. MTV boasts of 48.5million viewers in 48 African countries.
So
roughly let’s consider (assume) 1/4 of each country’s/region’s
internet users contribute to the MTV viewership, they are interested
in the awards will vote and contribute to the hash tag ‘#MTVMAMA’
(making it trend/go viral). That will give us over 5million active online
viewers in East Africa, 12million active online users in Nigeria and
2million active online users in South Africa. Ideally if you’re not
running an NGO like a commercial TV station you will consider
different ways of minimizing expenses and ensuring a viral/trending
(promo) for your event the fact that it involves voting online. As a
result you have to consider the stakeholders (countries) with the
numbers and give them first priority, because at the end of the day
you have a sponsor (who wants to sell his product as you also achieve
your goal) and a large number of people who subscribe to your TV to
entertain (giving them a reason to stay tuned in and bring others on
board); Thus some countries being left out and some artist’s hard
work not being recognized.
But how come Channel O
doesn’t follow this theory? How come they balance their
nominations? Wait for this year’s nomination list and you will see
what we mean here. (And by the way Kudos to Leslie Kasumba and the entire Channel O for their
exceptional work and their undying love for African Music)
Don’t get us wrong,
we are not saying artistes from West Africa or south Africa don’t
work hard, they do in fact every artist who is nominated deserves it
and has put in a lot to get there. All we are saying is that East
Africa was given little consideration (left out). There is still
time MTV, Make some changes.
Connect/Contact Writers:
Facebook:Byaruhanga Felix
Twitter:@TheNinjaFelix
Email:felixbyaruhanga@gmail.com
Facebook: KYLE
Twitter: @UptownKyle
Email: uptownkyle@gmail.com
