Award-winning contemporary Ghanaian Gospel artiste Cwesi Oteng has reacted to criticisms from his colleague, Nicholas Omane Acheampong that he (Cwesi Oteng), who has been nominated for the Artiste of the Year and Album of the Year categories, does not deserve to be in those categories.

“Go to the market and ask for Cwesi Oteng’s album. You would either not get it, or find it in very few stores, yet he was nominated for Artiste of the Year and Album of the Year,” Omane Acheampong said. Cwesi Oteng is one of the few gospel stars in Ghana today making a huge impact on the gospel music industry in Ghana with his soul inspiring messages and stagecraft.

The handsome and charming Cwesi Oteng whose music has gone down well Ghanaian music fans said he respects the ‘Zaphenath Panea’ man and does not want to destroy the relationship between them.

Cwesi’s songs have a centralized theme of God’s mercy relayed through sub themes such God’s love, salvation, goodness, blessings and favour carried on creative fusions of rhythms from Afro pop, R&B, highlife, soft rock, hip-praise and jazz. His ‘Mercy Project’ album which shot his image to another level, has also established him among the foremost gospel artistes and brands from Africa.

Cwesi Oteng, whose style of singing and live performance on stage have earned him massive recognition and raked in many awards including Best Gospel Video at the 2011 4Syte MVA and Best Lyrics for 2011 Most Wanted Song at the Contemporary Gospel Music Awards declared: “I respect Omane Acheampong a lot and I have told him before that I have a lot of respect for his music, style and creativity. Anything I say right now might be disrespectful and I do not want to do that,” Cwesi Oteng noted on Peace FM’s Entertainment Review.

Explaining further, Cwesi disclosed that he released his album on September 30, via a grand concert at the conference centre with a sold out concept and over 2,500 people received free copies each, adding “Since then my album has been on the market. If you go to Sliverbird you will get it; even Kantamanto, if you go there you will get it. It is everywhere so me I don’t know what they are talking about.”

Nicholas Omane Acheampong, who was also on the show, made strong claims that his song was far popular in Ghana than that of Cwesi, “I do not have a problem with the young man at all. You can go out there and compare ‘Zaphenath Panea’ album to ‘Mercy Project’ album and tell me which is selling. If you start from the North of Ghana right down to the South, everyone knows my ‘Zaphenath Panea’ song but with Cwesi, I don’t think if you go beyond Greater Accra where people know him and his songs…Yet he was nominated for Artiste of the Year and Album of the Year categories,” Nicholas Omane Acheampong asserted.

In response to his claim, Cwesi Oteng said he was nominated by a committee made up of learned people who knew what they were doing as far as their job was concerned.

“I did not write the nominations that Cwesi Oteng deserves album of the year; I got nominated. They nominated my album for that category so I really do not have anything else to say. It is very humbling for me to have earned this recognition, especially when all we want to do is to relay what God has placed on the heart of my team.” Cwesi said.

Watch Omane do his popular song, ‘Zaphenath Panea’