I get confused with VGMA – Kokovelli

Hiplife artiste, Kokovelli has revealed that the processes of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA), confuse him. In an interview with Graphic Showbiz on Tuesday, the Zaa Za hitmaker, real name Nathaniel Totimeh, said he gets confused with how the awards scheme unfolds, especially where people pick nomination forms to nominate themselves.

“How can you nominate yourself? Your works should nominate you and I believe that should be the way to go, people nominating themselves is wrong.

“Way back Charterhouse was doing it better but now they are messing up the awards, we don’t even understand the awards anymore, they should come out and explain it,” Kokovelli said.

Kokovelli also seems to have issues with the categorisation. “Kuami Eugene winning Highlife Artiste of the Year is ridiculous because he is not a Highlife artiste, he does Afropop, Angela and Confusion are not Highlife songs so they should not be in the Highlife category if you ask me.”

When it comes to the Most Popular Song of the Year, Kokovelli opines that Patapaa’s One Corner should have won that category hands down.

“Sponsor was popular, Taking Over was way popular but for me it was Patapaa’s One Corner that should have won, it was all over the place not only in Ghana but Nigeria and South Africa, it travelled everywhere, Kokovelli insisted.

When this reporter pointed out to him that Fancy Gadam’s Total Cheat won based on votes, Kokovelli would not take any of that saying, “How do you pick talent through voting? There are those who are rich and can buy call credit for people to vote for them. You could be the most talented and not get votes so I think voting should take just about 20 percent while the board uses its discretion,” he said.

The former member of the Hiplife Trinity also questioned the choice of Teephlow winning the Record of the Year category. “what is that about? what do they mean by Record of the Year? we could do with some explanation.”

It was not all gloomy for Kokovelli who is extremely happy with all the awards Ebony Reigns won on the night especially the ultimate Artiste of the Year.

“Those saying we are honouring the dead should bear in mind that Ebony made all those hits before she died, Micheal Jackson and Bob Marley are still being celebrated. In 2017 all her songs were mainstream hits, each being stronger than the previous one. She deserves it because she worked hard for it, she had mainstream hits,” he said.

Kokovelli also believes that Samini winning the Dancehall Song of the Year with My Own was well deserved, “Samini’s My Own is good, lyrics, instrumentation are all on point so it was a well- deserved award.”