The judges of the hot new rap talent search, Next Big Thing were overwhelmed by the turnout of great rap emcees at the final leg of auditions which took place at the studios of GH-One in Accra over the weekend. Over 300 aspiring rappers showed up for the auditions showing great rap skills that thoroughly lifted the spirits of the two Judges, Okyeame Kwame and Jayso, both strong believers in the future of Hiphop in Ghanaian music.

Auditions went on till the wee hours of the next day, yet the Judges were both willing to sit patiently through every single presentation till the last rapper had been attended to. Jayso commented: “I had very high expectations going into the auditions and apart from the low quality of the lyrics of some contestants, it was a day well spent. There were some really good emcees that came through the auditions and can be groomed well through the competition to take over the next generation of Hiphop music in Ghana”.

Okyeame Kwame was also excited about the turnout for the Accra Auditions. He said, “If we were looking for the top 10 acts or so to go through the competition, then they turned up for the auditions in Accra and Kumasi. Turn out on Saturday was beautiful, the rappers had positive energy to the extent that those who were told to go and develop their acts and come back next year were happy to try again later”.

The maiden edition of the Hiphop music reality competition is set to begin on GH-One Entertainment Television with the main focus of developing Ghana’s Hiphop culture to take its place of prominence in Ghanaian music through the building up of the skills of the next generation of artistes.

Judge Okyeame Kwame noted that two of the biggest problems in Ghanaian music now are the lack of music producers, and musician who burst onto the scene with little or no orientation on the working of the industry. The Next Big Thing series will therefore serve to orient the emcees on how to take their music to the next level. This he said will go a long way to boost the industry in both the short and long term. Jayso also lauded the concept of NBT as one that he is proud to be a part of because he believes it will cause a revolution in the Hiphop Culture in Ghana.

The next stage of the Nest Big Thing is the Semi finals which will put all those who made it through the auditions together and a final group will be selected to go through the actual competition which will be telecast on GH-One.