DANCEHALL artiste, Killer T feels he was cheated by the National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) adjudicators’ decision not to award him the gong for the Song of the Year in recognition of his blockbuster track, Takangodaro, which has almost become an anthem for ghetto youths.
BY PROBLEM MASAU
Killer T’s manager, Kudzai Biston, said they have since made a decision not to enter any awards in future.
“After this edition, we have decided not to enter any awards. It is very disappointing and we do not know how they adjudicate all this. Last year, we feel we were robbed and this year again? We can’t repeat this,” he said.
The Nama adjudicators crowned Jah Prayzah’s song, Mudhara Vachauya, which was only released in August last year, yet Takangodaro was already trending.
So popular was Killer T’s song that the late academic, Primrose Kurasha’s daughter, Kudzai, told mourners at her mother’s funeral this week that the now deceased used to love the song.
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Kudzai did a moving rendition of the song at the funeral where Higher and Tertiary Education minister, Jonathan Moyo, did a remix of the song.
Nama stirred a hornet’s nest last year when Killer T’s album Ngoma Ndaimba was overlooked for any awards at the ceremony.
This is not the first time artistes have complained about Nama awards selection.
In 2014, songbird Edith WeUtonga came out guns blazing, attacking Nama adjudicators for selecting Olivia Charamba as Outstanding Female Musician ahead of her and Selmor Mtukudzi.
Edith spat venom on her Facebook wall, describing the awards as a misrepresentation of the arts in the country.
“What I did not expect a few days after the awards is the statement from NACZ defending their awarding Mai Charamba. In the year under review both Selmor and I have contributed immensely to our industry and my worry now is if these monitors from NACZ are unaware of the works that we have done, then that is so disappointing and discouraging for our young upcoming female musicians. So many female musicians have performed around the country and surely if that is the criteria used then that list should have had more than ten female musicians,” she said then.
“I even raised the flag in India, where they heard Zimbabwean music for the first time and appreciated it.”