Ronald Kabuye the organiser of the awards receives a dummy cheque from tycoon Jack Pemba (Right) during the launch of this years awards, the money was for the support of the awards
Entertainment Awards in Uganda ceased to be respected by the stakeholders in the entertainment industry ever since the death of the Pearl of Africa Music (PAM) Awards in 2008.
When the PAM awards were introduced in 2003 by Isaac Mulindwa, many artistes respected them and were always excited about the awards. Whenever they were nominated, and they would pick their accolades personally, something that we rarely see at Entertainment Awards ceremonies.
But as we all know, when artistes and other music stakeholders started talking about how biased and corrupt the awards were, they finally died in 2008.
Singer Irene Namubiru after receiving an award at one of the editions
Ever since then, many entertainment awards have been organised month in month out; others happen once and never come back; others happen then come back after years whereas other happen and only a few people get to know about them, excluding the nominees.
The latest entertainment awards dubbed Uganda Entertainment Awards were introduced last year and they took place at the Commonwealth Resort in Munyonyo. The second edition of the awards was announced recently and earlier this week, the nomination list was released.
The list however didn’t go well with some artistes who branded the awards fake and biased as the usual categories were not seen. One of the artistes who was not happy was rapper Big Trill; the singer said that the awards’ organisers are trying to bring down a music genre which they have seen growing over the years. “We are among the first people to make Hip-Hop music in Uganda popular but when awards come up and they have no category recognizing the Best Hip-hop artistes or videos then they are biased,” Big Trill said.
In addition to that, while appearing on NTV The Beat show, Rapper Reef HD from 2Bad Entertainment, a music group headed by Rapper Don MC said that the organisers confidently released the nomination list without adding a slot to recognise players in the Ugandan Hip-Hop music. “How would one trust and attend awards that are not balanced? They just go for the usual categories forgetting others,” Reef HD said.
The Uganda Entertainment Awards will this time take place at Kampala Serena Hotel on August 19.
logwal@ug.nationmedia.com
