4Syte Awards fails to fly

It had been a highly-anticipated and a well patronised event since its debut in 2009, but last Saturday, the 4Syte Music Awards hit an alltime low and is gradually losing its shine as a premier event that rewarded creativity in music video production.

In fact, bad co-ordination and technical problems seem to be getting the better of the event in the last three years and last Saturday’s show at the Accra International Conference Centre was no exception. The high expectation of patrons and stakeholders in the music industry were dashed by poor organisation.

Apart from patrons being subjected to late start of the programme, they had to also endure bad sound quality when the show eventually opened at a quarter to midnight -- almost four hours after the advertised start time of 8pm.

Worse for patrons, it turned out to be a “no show” from the Naija brothers on the night, as the advertised a line-up of artistes involving Nigerian stars, Patoranking and Kiss David, failed to materialise. But Ghana’s Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale provided the spark to light up the dull moments when they came on stage to dish out some of their popular songs to the audience. Their performances were perhaps, the “saviour” on the night as other acts such as EL, R2Bees among others couldn’t keep the flames high.

It was another big night for the reigning VGMA Artiste of the Year, Stonebwoy, as he picked the Most Influential Artiste of the Year. It was a competitive category which had ‘big” names like Sarkodie, Fuse ODG, EL, Guru, VVIP, Shatta Wale and R2Bees.

The Baafira artiste also walked away with the Best Directed Video and Best Dancehall/Reggae awards for his Pull Up remix video which featured Patoranking.

Other winners on the night were EL (King Without A Crown) - Best Special Effect, Pappy Kojo (Realer No) - Best Video Discovery, D Black (Setewa Denky3) - Best Story line Video,  – D Black (Setewa Denky3) -  Best Edited Video, Fuse ODG (Only) - Best Photography – Fuse ODG (Only), VVIP (Skolom) -  Best Choreography Video and Bisa Kdei (Mansa) - Best Male Video.

The others are Becca (Steady) - Best Female Video,  4×4 (Kpagam) - Best Group Video, Kiss Daniel (Woju Remix) - Best African Act Video,  Omar Sterling (Nineteen Ninety) - Best Hiphop Video, Sarkodie ft Burna Boy, AKA (Someone Special) - Best Collaboration Video,  Kwaw Kese (Swedru) -  Best Higlife Video, Stonebwoy (Pull Up Remix) - Best Directed Video.

Surprisingly, there were no awards for Best Highlife Video and Best Gospel Music Video awards although there were nominees in both categories at this year’s 4Syte Music Video Awards which was compered by Jocelyn Dumas and John Dumelo.