I woke up to another interesting bit in the Music Industry; Rapper , Joseph Gamor known in showbiz circles as Lyrical Joe has released a rap freestyle purported to throw shades at the just ended 3music awards and Amerado Burner in an attempt to register his displeasure about the decision to crown Young KA Rapper of the Year as far as the Year under review is concerned.
Listening to the freestyle, it was crystal clear that there was somewhat a sense of entitlement on the part of the young rapper for the category . You could feel the frustration in his lyrics and tone; per hindsight and retrospection, I tend to understand and appreciate the source of entitlement: he thinks and feels he worked relentlessly and meticulously to release “bars” after “bars” in his Barcode episodes and 5th August “beast” , but there’s more to it as far as that category is concerned.
This controversy spawns because of the categorization, if you ask me . I had a big problem with VGMAs having a category dubbed “Rapper of the Year ” and attaching rap songs to the nominees , and I was saddened when 3music emulated that unfortunate aspect.
A category’s artiste of the year per the criteria should be more about the personality than songs. Why on earth would you have categories like Hiplife , Hiphop, Afropop songs of year and nominate the best songs in that category in the year under review and nominate artistes for Highlife , HipHop , Afropop artistes of the Year without attaching songs ; but nominate rappers for Rapper of the Year category and add their rap songs to the category?
That’s Rap Song category of the Year and not Rapper of the Year.
The fact that your Hiplife or Hiphop song was great in the year under review doesn’t warrant you winning Hiplife/Hiphop artiste of the year; you feel me? So maybe going forward, there should be two categories for rap : Rap Song of the Year and Rapper of the Year to curb issues of this sort.
In Lyrical Joe’s freestyle, he mentioned that his 5th August Song was way better than Amerado Burner ‘s song which won that category; That’s true!!! as far as rap songs in the category are concerned, Lyrical Joe’s 5th August was better lyrically, accurately, tonally etc than Amerado’s ‘Best Rapper ‘ song ; but Amerado’s personality in the rap game in the year under review was topnotch , so yes , he deserves to be Rapper of the Year. However, the circumstances surrounding his win a bit blurry, murky and if you like, questionable.
So…… 5th August deserves rap song of the Year but Amerado is the best Rapper of the Year as far as the Year under review is concerned!!!
Something should certainly be done about that category: either have two categories i.e Rap Song and Rapper of the Year or nominate rappers in Rapper of the Year category without necessarily cherrypicking and adding their respective songs.
God bless Ghana Music
