Gospel Music Awards Lacked Colour...But Tagoe Sisters Had Something For The Audience

Tagoe Sisters still evergreen As if to prove that she was ?really alive and not dead? as goes the lyrics in one of her songs, Christina Love, of Me Ye Onyame Ba fame, emerged the top winner at the second Ghana Gospel Music Awards held last weekend at the National Theatre.

Christina, who had been highly tipped to win big, scooped three awards: Gospel Song of the Year, Praise Song of the Year and Gospel Album of the Year.

For winning the overall Gospel Song of the Year, she will represent Ghana at the International Roots and Praise Festival to be held at Benin in August this year and will also receive CFA 1.5 million (25 million cedis).

Other winners were Prophet Seth Frimpong who won for the Most Inspiring Lyrics with his Me Huri So song and the Gospel Artiste of the Year, Rev Bernard Ankomah for Best Worship Song, Nana Yaw Asare for Best Male Vocal Performance and Cynthia Appeadu of Daughters of Glorious Jesus for Female Vocal Performance.

Sandro Oduro, New Artiste of the Year The rest are Sandra Oduro for Gospel New Artiste, Winneba Youth Choir for Best Mass Ministry, Daughters of Glorious Jesus for Best Small Ministry, Monarch?s Praise for Best Video Clip (The award went to the Director of the video), Daniel Bassey of Spirit Digital got the Best Music Engineer and Big Ben received the Best Music Producer award.

Special awards went to Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketiah, Rev Leslie Tex Buabasah, Rev Mary Ghansah, Stella Seal Dugan, Rev Eric Kwapong, Esther Nyamekye, Tagoe Sisters, Rev Kusi Berko, Yaw Agyeman Badu (Yabs) and Ace Ankomah for their pioneering roles in the development of gospel music.

Contrary to assurances by the organisers for a better show, it turned out to be the opposite of that.

One cannot quite pinpoint what made it so, but everything smacked of poor organisation. The choice of artistes selected to perform before the event proper only succeeded in boring the audience who were just not responsive.

Another thing that put a damper on things and made it even more boring was the absence of most of the award winners and some of the artistes. It got quite boring when winner after winner was announced and representatives kept collecting their awards for them.

It took the fun out of it as the audience just looked on as if they were not interested. Cheers were few even for those present.

The absence of major artistes like Daughters of Glorious Jesus who were celebrating a week of the death of a relative and Prophet Seth Frimpong who is said to have travelled also contributed to the boredom as from looks of things the audience had come because of them.

Then there was problem of the video footage of the nominees which was poor. The pictures and sound refused to align and when it was eventually rectified, the harm had already been done.

The spectacle by the Jesus look-alike was not necessary. It did not make one bit of sense and could have been done without. Whatever the import was, it just did not hit home.

The high points included performances by Collins and Ophelia Nyantachie backed by the Joyful Saints who were a real delight and who can be said to have made the show. Their performance was great and energetic and was even more enhanced by the dance skills exhibited by Ophelia and their backing dancers. Of course Ophelia looked good in her outfit.

Evergreen Tagoe Sisters proved they have still got it going even though they have been off stage for a while. They sent the audience down memory lane treating them to some soulful tracks from their albums.

Christina Love had people on their feet dancing to her songs while Joseph Mensah of Anadwo Bodgya fame was also good as well as Alabaster Box (Aren?t we a little tired of Welcome).

MCs Jackie Ankrah and Diamond Naymekor who also co-hosted last year?s event were also good but it was Diamond who made the night. With his witty remarks, his rhymes and jokes, he was great.

He sure knows what to do to get the audience tickling and laughing, even when they don?t want to and he proved to be the real saviour of the show, Jackie was a bit stiff though.

Set design was ok and Kudos to Johnson Adu of the National Theatre for a job well done.

This year?s edition was a let down and far cry from what happened last year. The organisers could have done better and they know it. A lot more work needs to be done if this good initiative can be sustained.