AFRIMA showcases African music and culture

The second edition of the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) came off at the weekend at the popular Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos to rhythms, sounds and cultures of the different peoples and countries across the African continent.

The occasion was also used to recognise the contribution to the culture of Africa by former governor or Nigeria Senator, Bola Ahmed Tinubu aka Jagaban.

The opening act itself was a massive display of about 10 minutes of energetic dance moves of different genre.

When the main show got into gear, South Africa’s legendary group Lady Smith Black Mamabaso after a performance was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award for their immense contribution to African music and culture for 55 years. A well-deserved commendation it was.

Ghana’s Wiyaala once again proved to be the one artiste who can take her craft to any stage and dominate. She mounted the stage dressed like Wiyaala, but riding at a back of a motorbike.

When she got off she went into her groove to perform her hit song Africa. She was then joined on stage by Moroccan singer Ahmed Soultan to perform their joint song This Is Who I am.

On the awards front, Ghana had a good number of nominations in different categories including Sarkodie for Artiste of the Year and his Adonai Remix for Song of Year.

However, there were only two wins for Ghana with serial award winner Stonebwoy adding another award to his 2015 haul in the Reggae, Ragga and Dancehall Artiste of the Year category. He picked that beating some big-name African artistes including his own homie, Patoraking.

Also, Stanley Adjetey who directed Wiyaala’s video to the song Africa beat many big shot African directors including the much talked about Clarence Peters, who had two nominations in that category, to win the Music Video Director of the Year Award.

But it was a night for music performances and there were some very notable performances on the night by some of the artistes from the different countries that took part in this year’s AFRIMA.

For example, Cameroonian rapper Stanley Enow who won the Best Male Artiste for Central Africa delivered a good show earlier on the night to an appreciable applause.

Another artiste that performed so well on the night was Ethiopian songstress Tsedenia who also picked up the award for the Best Female Artist in Eastern Africa. She demonstrated on stage that she had a very good song, very sweet voice and a very suave personality.

Then there was Nigeria’s own Darey who put up a very splendidly well-choreographed performance to his song Pray For Me. That song also won his the Best Male Artist in Inspirational. It was for me one of the best performances on the night, typical Darey.

Kenyan very popular music group, Sauti Sol also put up a spectacular performance on the night typical of their animated style. The group took home two awards including Best African Group to round off a very successful music year.

Also performing on the night was Ghana’s Dark Suburb, the rock group of young men who wear masks to perform on stage and were picked up the Best Artiste in the unsung category of the last Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.

They did an okay show although they had challenges with the sound, but were unlucky not to have picked any award in the two categories in which they were nominated.

South Africa’s AKA was on stage to pick his award for Best African Collaboration for all Eyes On Me featuring Burna Boy, Da Les & Jr and also to perform. So was Nigerian youngster Kiss Daniel who did not only win Most Promising Artist in Africa award, but also performed having performed a night earlier at the 4Syte Music Video Awards in Accra.

The night belonged to Tanzanian sweetheart and East African juggernaut, Diamond Platinumz whose song Nasema Nawe has been a big hit in his country and home region. That song rightly won the Song of the Year and he won the most prestigious award on the night: Artiste of the Year. 

It appeared that the large audience which was mostly made up of Nigerians was not happy that their sweetheart and current top artiste Olamide was not named as the Artiste of the Year, but when he mounted the stage to perform as the final act, the entire auditorium went rapturous and everybody got up. It was a sight to behold.

The show was ably handled by two of the most outstanding hosts and hostesses in Africa -Kenyan, DNG real name Davidson Ngibuini and Ivorian, Aurelle Eliam. But it was the female DJ who held everything together.