Afro-pop sensation is one of the favourites at the Metro FM Music Awards
|||Ahead of the 15th Metro FM Music Awards, Helen Herimbi predicts who will take home a gong and some guap.
The annual Metro FM Music Awards (MMAs) present their 15th instalment at the Durban ICC this Saturday. At the time of going to print, the national radio station was keeping mum about who the host with the most would be as well as who some of the performers on the night will be.
But if the nominees’ list is anything to go by, chances are the who’s who of the music industry will be entertaining those in attendance as well as at home since the awards will be broadcast live.
Speaking of nominees, it was announced that the winner in each category would receive a R100 000 cash prize in addition to the bragging rights. That means Nathi, Prince Kaybee as well as DJs Sphectacula and Naves have a shot at taking home R500 000 as each act leads the pack with five nominations each.
Newcomer, Emtee, scooped four nominations as did rapper, Riky Rick. But who will be taking home the awards? Here are our predictions.
Afro-pop sensation, Nathi, has been the talk of the town ever since his hit single, Nomvula, was released. So when it comes to the Best African Pop Album, he will probably come out tops. His album, Buyelekhaya, is nominated alongside Zonke’s Work of Heart, Maleh’s You Make My Heart Go, Kabomo’s Sekusile and Zahara’s Country Girl.
But don’t count out Zahara yet. With only two nominations under her belt, she might stand a chance at scooping the Best Female Album award. But even with her incredible sales (Country Girl went gold in a day, after all) it won’t be an easy win. Zonke’s fresh Work of Heart is up there as is Thiwe’s mixture of soul and dance in Soul Therapy as well as Maleh’s soulful You Make My Heart Go and the singing-meets-rapping 20FIFI by rapper, Fifi Cooper.
It would be a coup for Miss Cooper to take that particular award home. The newbie rapper is nominated in three categories and it would be even greater news if she scooped the Best New Artist award, too. But that is likely to go to Emtee because even though Nathi’s buzz was great for young and old, Emtee’s Roll Up was polarising. Riky Rick and Prince Kaybee join these three acts in this category.
Prince Kaybee definitely has the potential to be the dark horse of these awards. The Wajelwa producer is pretty popular, but not many people thought he was popular enough to go toe-to-toe with the established Sphe and Naves as well as the music darling, Nathi. Two of Prince Kaybee’s songs (Wajelwa and Better Days) are nominated in the Song of the Year category.
But those songs are up against Black Coffee’s viral hit, We Dance Again, as well as Nathi’s Nomvula, DBN Nyts’s Shumaya, Heavy K’s Umoya, DJ Ganyani’s Talk To Me, DJ Shimza’s Akulalwa, Riky Rick’s Boss Zonke and DJ Sphectacula and DJ Naves’s Kings of the Weekend Anthem.
As for which of those 10 songs will be crowned Song of the Year, it’s really anyone’s guess because Nomvula, Boss Zonke, We Dance Again, Shumaya and Umoya pretty much owned 2015 on the airwaves, in the clubs and at concerts.
The Best Male Album category comprises Nathi’s Nomvula up against Black Coffee’s Pieces of Me, Prince Kaybee’s Better Days, Riky Rick’s Family Values and Cassper Nyovest’s Refiloe.
The ponytailed one is also nominated in the Best Hip Hop Album category for his 2015 release, Refiloe. He is up against Riky Rick for Family Values, Zakwe for Impande, Fifi Cooper for 20FIFI and Emtee for Avery. Based on the production quality alone, Avery is an aural pleasure. But because the awards are based on a voting system where individual cellphone numbers were allowed up to 500 votes each, this is not about how good an album is. It’s a numbers game. Cassper filled up The Dome, so we know he’s got the numbers.
The Best Hit Single category is a strange beast as none of the artists nominated dominate the nominees list. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t pack some heat for the radio. L-Tido’s Dlala Ka Yona got plenty spins as did Baddest by AKA (featuring Yanga, Khuli Chana and Burna Boy). WTF’s Nomusa is also in the running alongside Kwesta’s Nomayini and Back to the Beach by Shekinah and Kyle Deutch. We want to put our Monopoly money on L-Tido, but Shekinah and Kyle had a good run too.
The newest addition to the categories is the African Category. The radio station is running a competition where listeners must name the category and stand a chance to win a trip to the awards, so go enter that. But we digress.
This new category shines the light on songs by other African artists who receive regular airplay. The nominees are Wizkid for Ojuelegba, Burna Boy for Soke, The Mavins for Dorobucci, Patoranking featuring Wande Coal for My Woman as well as Reekado Banks for Katapot. Although we’ve been hearing My Woman a lot on radio of late, Dorobucci still goes in after all this time and we still don’t really know what it means. But it’s provocative.
While there are 17 categories in the MMAs, we don’t have enough paper to unpack them all. So it would be interesting to hear your predictions too. Keep up with us via our social media and let us know who you would like to see walk away with an award and a wad of cash.
The 15th Metro FM Music Awards take place at the Durban International Convention Centre on Saturday and will be aired live on SABC1 at 8pm.
