There is a common practice that runs through all reality shows at least in Ghana; that is, you go for an audition and your fate is known shortly after.
But Airtel Ghana and Trace TV’s Airtel Trace Music Star music reality show auditions are completely different from the norm.
Are they in to change how auditions for reality shows are done in the country? Reality Shows have had a very huge following in Ghana lately, although I cannot readily say when they were introduced in the country.
As far as I can remember, reality shows became very popular sometime in the year 2006. Since then, it has grown to the extent that, almost every month, new reality shows spring up to add to the existing ones.
To say they have been accepted will be an understatement; in fact they have become part of Ghanaians. Indeed when you talk about reality shows, some of the following comes to mind; Mentor, Stars of The Future, Ghana’s Most Beautiful, MTN Soccer Academy, Talented Kids, Amazing Child, I Am In Love With Bomaye, Born Starz, Vodafone Icons, Nescafe African Revolution, Voice Factory, MTN Hitmaker, The Challenge and few others.
For the sake of this article, I will restrict the discussion exclusively to music related reality shows. Mentor, introduced by TV3 network, can be regarded as the biggest music reality show ever to be introduced in the country, and it sparked the trend of music reality shows in the country.
This is because most Ghanaians associated with it due to its ‘local’ approach. Around the same time, Charterhouse also introduced their Stars of the Future music reality show which gave birth to current music stars like Irene, Efya, Adina, Yaaya among others. By far, these two shaped the reality shows industry where music is concerned.
Other reality shows that were geared towards music that came after Mentor and Stars of the Future included Voice Factory by Citi FM, Vodafone Icons by Vodafone Ghana, MTN Hitmaker by MTN Ghana and Celebrations also introduced by TV3.
There are also these reality shows that were geared towards other disciplines in addition to music such as; Talented Kids by TV3, Amazing Child by TV Africa and Born Starz by Viasat1.
Common practice
All the above mentioned reality shows have one thing in common. Whether acting, comedy or music reality shows, each one requires the wannabe to be present at an advertised venue to face the judges by performing their song or a song by another musician. You can call this an audition.
After the audition, it’s either the wannabe is made to progress to the next round of the auditions or failed and he or she is told by the judges to try their luck next time during another edition.
In arriving at the decision to either qualify the wannabe or kick them out, some vital things are taken into consideration. For example, the ability of a wannabe to sing is definitely not enough to make the person a music star. In addition to being a good singer, appearance and looks of the person are important and are taken into consideration at auditions.
That is why at some auditions, you often hear the judges say to contestants, “even though you did not convince us that you can sing, we think that you have the potential that we can work with, so we think you deserve to be given another chance.”
On other occasions you hear, “you look good, hence we have decided to pass you to the next stage in order to work on you to be a better singer” or the killer one “our decision was against your qualifications but on second thought, we think you have a look of a star, so we changed our minds to keep you in.”
At least we now know that, contestants are not selected to be part of reality shows just because they can sing better than R Kelly or Whitney Houston but because they have something that can appeal to audiences.
Nobody will pay attention to you if you are wretched yet sing better than Kwabena Kwabena, but people will hail you, even if you are a bad singer but look and appear good.
The above scenarios may just be few of such things that are looked at critically.
Airtel Trace Music Star
A very interesting thing to note about this new music reality show, Airtel Trace Music Star, launched in October 2014 by Airtel Ghana in collaboration with Trace TV is that, the wannabe music stars are not present when their songs are judged.
How the judges are able to screen the entries, having at the back of their minds that, the appearance is important to a success of an artiste is quite curious to me and I believe many Ghanaians will do same when the show finally kicks off.
Currently, radio broadcaster, Kafui Dey, rapper, Edem, and singer, Raquel, are screening the entries without seeing the contestants. This means that, the contestants are judged solely based on their vocal ability and nothing else.
How the judges will pick contestants who will appeal to the audience will only be known after the Best five contestants are picked to battle it out for the ultimate prize.
However, Kafui Dey has defended the stance that the organisers have taken with the show in respect to how the auditions are judged.
He told GhanaGist.com that, “For me, I think looks are overrated. Looks, fine but the way the Airtel Trace Music Star is being held, it actually gives a level playing field to all, so you are judged solely on your voice. After all, for the finals, they will actually perform, so it’s not going to be strictly just listening to them via the phone.
“They will actually perform at the finals, so we will get to know the winner for Ghana on the night anyway. We are hoping that by that time, we have narrowed it down to the really best people who will now compete for the ultimate.”
Mr Dey also wondered why the telecommunications networks in Ghana, have not thought of this kind of auditions as most of them can reap more dividends and spend less financially.
“I’m surprised that, the telcos never thought of this. This is the way to structure the competition earlier because it makes use of technology. It also makes sense to them financially because you don’t have to go pay money to a production house to hire, feed the judges, pay the judges, transport people left and right, do all these backstage interviews, production for TV.”
Entertainment pundits will be waiting to do a comparison between this show and other music reality shows in areas of vocal ability and appearance after the show is done. But is this new way of auditioning the way to go or it’s just to cut cost and rather make extra from the contestants?
