Battle line drawn with eatv awards nominations

Dar es Salaam. The awards season is one that comes with plenty of surprises everywhere; they will be praised and sometimes even slated for reasons that sometimes are rather mysterious.

These awards offer a platform to weigh several issues; from the artistic qualities of artistes to the fashion sense of our socialites and celebrities as the perceived cream is awarded.

In a year when Tanzanian artistes were successful on the international frontiers in both film and music, this year will go down as a low key year as there was a threat of not having a single award taking place locally.

And when all seemed like the year would end in gloom, the East Africa TV awards took center stage, a new entrant that brought some silver lining seemed set in the horizons, something that must have come as a sigh of relief to entertainment enthusiasts.

The announcement of the nominees over the weekend set the tone for the upcoming awards ceremony that has been set for December 12 in Dar es Salaam.

Nine categories up for grabs

Pitting some of the heavy weights in East Africa the awards are spread in 10 different categories that feature film makers, actors and musicians.

Apart from one, all the rest will be won on popular votes as the nominees battle one another for trophies. Voting kicked off immediately after the nominations were announced.

On the music front AliKiba and Ben Pol battle out in two categories for the Best Male artiste and the Artiste of the Year categories with popular singles Aje and Moyo Machine respectively.

The Song of the year category also features other heavyweights such as Lady Jaydee, Joh Makini and Navy Kenzo.

Another area that has attracted competition in the best female artiste of the year where returnee Lady Jaydee battles it out with Vanessa Mdee, Linah, Ruby and lone Ugandan Lilian Mbabazi.

All these artistes have enjoyed a year of success both on and off the stage and maybe winning this category could add an extra gloss to their careers.

Ruby in particular had her debut single, ‘Na Yule’ which was followed up with ‘Forever’ songs that got the country singing and dancing long before she rebelled against her foster parents.

Lady Jaydee’s return in May was something of a kind as she has since gone on a national tour making her concerts one of the must-attend events in the entertainment circles.

Vanessa Mdee a nominee at the MTV Africa Music Awards has been a major feature with her hit single Niroge enjoying a huge chunk of airplay.

The battle in the female category is one that is likely to be interesting in many ways especially considering that each of these artistes is a queen in her own right.

Aika and Nahreel of the Navy Kenzo meteoric rise continues their dominance with their Kamatia Chini hit single in the Best Group category, a nomination that the same hit earned them at the MTV Awards a month ago.

Films

The past one year has been quite a miserable year in the film industry save for Single Mtambalike and Elizabeth Michael aka lulu’s win at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards, not much has been worth of mention!

For the first time in the history of awards in Tanzania film actors and actresses will be awarded alongside their music counterparts.

Spread out in three categories of Best Male, Female and Film of the year, the cusual suspects come into contention.

The Best female category features Kajala Masanja, Chuchu Hansy, Khadija Ally and Racheal Kitulo as they seek for honours in an arena where TFA has failed miserably.

Safari Ya Gwalu an award winning film at the Zanzibar International Film Festival pits Salim Ahmed Issa aka Gabo against other male contestants such as Said Ally, Meya Shabani Musa, Doto Hussein Matotola, Daudi Michael Tairo. These will contest for the Best Male actor.

Names missing

As the folks out there and those nominated celebrate fingers are being pointed for the organisers having left out some of what the fans consider to be other big names.

The legions of fans on social media believe there were bigger artistes whose songs did well between July 2015 and June 2016 which was the cut off point for a song to qualify.

Speaking to the beat Roy Mbowe who is at the helm of the organisation said unlike the previous awards where artistes were nominated, these awards required artistes to submit entries.

“It is not a new system because we have seen it elsewhere including platforms like AMVCA, Sauti Za Busara and ZIFF who call for entries, and artists respect that procedure why not now?” queried Roy Mbowe.

He adds: the only reason why you might not see some of the big artistes on this final list is that either they didn’t submit their works or they just didn’t make the cut when the academy sat.

For an artist to qualify for these awards they had to be registered by the National Arts Council, unfortunately according to the watchdog’s boss Godfrey Mungereza there are very many artistes who are not registered by the council.

“It is clearly stated that for you to be a recognised artiste you have to register with the council unfortunately there are some artistes whose works made the cut but were not registered,” said Mungereza.

For artistes who are based outside Tanzania they had to be registered by similar organs in either Kenya or Uganda to meet the requirements. But as Mungereza and Mbowe laboured to justify their cases, there were those who questioned whether these awards will consider to have awarded the best in the face of such frailties.

It remains an interesting battle that will make the night of December 12 quite a memorable one for both losers and winners.