A member of the Board of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA), Nii Ayite Hammond, has reacted to claims that Black Sherif was more deserving of the Album of the Year award than King Promise.
Nii Ayite Hammond acknowledged the brilliance of “The Villian I Never Was” album by Black Sherif but emphasized that “5 Star” from King Promise passed the litmus test in an interview with Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Twitter Space.
“It is true that ‘The Villain I Never Was’ ticks all the boxes, the same way King Promise’s album also ticks all the boxes. You realise that when you read the category definition, it doesn’t say hit song and quality of recording. It says ‘and/or’. So when you are assessing them, you assess both and you make a choice out of that assessment,” he said.
The VGMA board member added that the dynamics for winning the Album of the Year category have shifted from having the highest number of hit songs to one possessing technical qualities.
He explained, “At a point in time in the music life of the country, we were doing more singles so the albums were kind of suffering. And so people who were coming out with albums and we realized that the definition that we had in the past which was three or more hit songs was becoming a challenge. So, in the wisdom of the Board, we needed to change that definition.”
The Album of the Year of Vodafone Ghana Music is adjudged by the Academy and Board as the most outstanding compilation of an Album that was released during the year under review. It must have generated excitement during the year, the category definition reads.