EVERY year, as the Harmattan dust settles and the Easter chickens begin plotting their escape, Ghana’s music scene gears up for its real festive season: awards season.
Forget the first rains or fresh kelewele wafting through the streets of Osu—this is when the big players roll out the red carpets, cue the pyrotechnics, and line up the acceptance speeches. The Telecel Ghana Music Awards (TGMA), usually lands with fanfare.
The 3Music Awards, not to be outdone, throws in its own dose of glitz, social commentary, and category innovation. Then there’s the growing constellation of smaller awards—Ghana Music Awards USA, regional and genre specific shows—all battling to define who truly ruled the soundwaves.
In theory, these awards are supposed to be a celebration of musical excellence. In practice? They’re more like a political campaign season with better outfits and louder sound systems.
Between disqualified hits, eyebrow-raising nominations, and enough “industry board decisions” to make a parliamentary debate look transparent, one question echoes louder each year:
The envelope, please…
At the core of the Ghanaian music industry’s awards ecosystem is a fundamental question no one seems able — or willing — to answer clearly: Who decides what’s hot?
For years, artistes and fans alike have whispered — and occasionally tweeted — their skepticism about how these awards are decided. Is it popularity? Is it artistry? Is it who shook the right hands in the smoky back rooms of Accra? And why, for heaven’s sake, does the same artist win “Artiste of the Year” two years in a row — even when they spent most of the year out of town “working on new sounds”?
It’s no wonder that when a 3Music Awards official once described their voting system as “transparent and collaborative,” some Ghanaians blinked harder than someone trying to decode Shatta Wale’s Instagram captions.
The trust deficit
Let’s not mince words: Ghana’s music awards culture is suffering from a serious trust deficit. While both TGMA and 3Music Awards have made valiant attempts to rebrand and restructure over the years, a sizable portion of the public remains unconvinced.
Accusations of favoritism, political interference, backdoor lobbying, and “category shifting” have become as common as poor mic quality during live performances. Artists who were wildly popular on the streets — think underground drill groups, gospel innovators, or TikTok breakout stars — are often overlooked in favor of industry darlings with more clout than catalog.
In a painfully ironic twist, the very people these awards are supposed to celebrate — the artists — are increasingly disengaged. Some have publicly boycotted the shows. Others attend with the enthusiasm of someone waiting at DVLA.
The case of the perpetually snubbed
Every Ghanaian music lover can name at least three artists who were scandalously snubbed at the awards. The underground rapper whose debut EP sparked a cultural movement. The gospel singer whose song kept people afloat during the pandemic. The Afro-fusionist who charted globally but left the TGMA stage empty-handed, again.
These aren’t just minor oversights — they’re signals of a larger system that often fails to reflect the full spectrum of Ghana’s musical reality. It’s like hosting a Ghanaian food contest and forgetting to invite Waakye, Fufu and Jollof — culturally criminal.
Meanwhile, certain genres like highlife, reggae-dancehall, or contemporary gospel often feel like token categories, while regional artists outside Accra are treated like exotic animals trotted out for amusement, then ignored until the next awards cycle.