VGMA Goofed! Stonebwoy's 'EOM' Doesn't Deserve to be Nominated Over Becca's 'Unveiling' in the Album of the Year Category.

Before you attack me kindly consider that this is an opinionated article and it is backed by facts, research and recent happenings in the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs). Over the years artistes have gradually shunned the production of albums and have concentrated their efforts into singles which works for the majority of them. The focus on album production obviously has reduced in the music industry thus the VGMA board scrapping the Gospel Album of the Year category in the 2016 edition.

A-list artistes such as Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, EL, MzVee are the few artistes who take album releases very seriously thus, releasing albums every year or two font their fans to enjoy. These artistes have released at least three albums in the past five years to their credit and they are to be applauded for their consistency. Amazingly, the last year 2017 saw the release of albums from a lot of artistes and I'm pushed to believe that, album releases are now becoming an interest for our artistes.

Yaa Pono released Faster Than Gods, Medikal released Disturbation, Kojo Cue and Shaker released a joint album Pen and Paper, Teephlow released Phlowducation, Akan released Onipa Akoma to mention the few. Joe Mettle, Kwabena Kwabena, Joyce Blessing are other A-list artistes who released their albums in 2017 and the list goes on.

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But for the purpose of not boring you with a long article let's deal with the few and go to the substantive issue on board. In the definition of the VGMA album of the Year, it states that: The Album of the Year is adjudged by the Academy and Board as the most outstanding compilation of hit songs on an album that was released during the year under review. It must have generated the most excitement during the year. The underlined phrase here for me is "Hit Songs" that will be our first case study.

I may not be a hardcore fan of Stonebwoy so probably my argument would be thrown into the dustbin yet, as I stated in the introduction, this is solely my opinion backed with facts and recent happenings of the VGMAs. Stonebwoy released Epistles Of Mama (EOM) in December which obviously qualifies for the nomination but if you ask me or hundred people on the streets which song from his album made a hit in 2017 I'm sure the catchphrase "Hit Songs" doesn't qualify the album to be there.

The second case study is the catchphrase "it must have generated the most excitement during the year". We're talking about 2017 guys so let's be objective. Stonebwoy held a successful concert after the release the album (release date 12th Dec 17') on 23rd December 2017. We're in 2018 and I'm still yet to know this song that's buzzing from the EOM album. Apart from Zylofon FM which obviously is owned by the record label he's signed to, I hardly hear any of the songs on other stations.

Mind you I listen to reggae programs especially Blakk Rasta's show and I hardly hear any song off EOM on the show and on the streets, wherever I go I hardly hear a song from the album apart from my own phone which I sometimes rotate some of the songs. So I'm still wondering what they call "it must have generated the most excitement". Fast forward let's look at Becca's Unveiling album.

Off the head, I can easily mention about seven songs on the album that enjoys airplay and it's in people's head even if you may not know the title you may know the song. Songs like Na Wash (ft. Patoranking), Mi ne waa, B3shiwo (ft. Bisa Kdei), Summy3, Number One (ft. Mr. Eazi), Hw3 (ft. Bisa Kdei), Don't Know (ft. Kofi Kinaata). Some of you would probably say some of the songs were released in 2016, yes that's true but the definition of an album is "a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape or another medium." so yes it is an album, released on 18th August 2017 with two or three songs released in 2016. In my opinion, it qualifies to be nominated in the Album of the Year category.

The irony is that two songs of the Unveiling album were nominated and none of EOM was nominated yet EOM makes the nomination and Unveiling doesn't make it. If none of you is confused about this then I am because with their own category definition, Unveiling carries more weight than EOM. Unveiling had a big concert to its credit so did Highest, Daavee, Bonyfied the other three albums that had nomination alongside EOM. If it's about buzz Unveiling capped with a concert celebrating Becca's ten years in the industry and it was the talk of the town for a long time.

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I wish I could go as far as mentioning songs that got nominations in the VGMAs off the Album of the Year nominees but I want to leave this to you to make your own research and see if I'm making sense. This is not to downplay the huge effort invested in EOM and the quality of its production, no! Going by their own definition, I believe Unveiling deserved a nomination more than EOM or it's should've been nominated alongside the others and I stand by my views.

I throw the debate to you and I make myself available for any criticism. I love this music industry and I believe that those who make decisions or set the rules, should abide by them and recognize hardworking artistes. I don't think nominating Unveiling would hurt anyone. That album is huge and very rich and I think it's unfair to Becca as an artiste and to the entire team who worked on it.

By GKE Raymond @ elormonline.com