The highs and lows of 2015
Staff Writer | Friday December 18, 2015 12:47
BOMU Awards
The Annual Botswana Musicians Union lived up to its promise of honouring and rewarding ‘deserving’ musicians, by hosting the 7th BOMU awards, which were held at GICC on October 31, 2015. A number of musicians went home smiling from ear-to-ear after winning awards, including Charma Gal who bagged four awards, MMP Family, Amantle BW, and Shumba Ratshega, just to mention a few.
The awards, however, did not go without criticism from members of the public, who felt there was favouritism in choosing some of the winners.
Judges’ marks accounted for 60 percent, while public voting accounted for 40 percent, meaning the judges’ vote somewhat carried more weight. Some, however, felt all the winners deserved to win. This trend is quite popular with competitions of this nature, hence, the decision by other organisations, which host awards, to leave all the voting to the public.
Perhaps BOMU should leave the voting entirely to the public, to avoid being accused of favouritism. The award ceremony was criticised for falling below expectations. While BOMU should be applauded for some of the programmes they have introduced aimed at assisting local musicians, the organisation needs to put its house in order, and invest in giving their clientele proper representation, which will benefit musicians, and grow the industry.
Yarona FM Music Awards (YAMAs)
Yarona FM hosted its second awards ceremony on December 12, 2015, and the awards received raving reviews from newspapers as well as on social media. The awards, were not only well attended, a lot of those who decided to grace the event decided to dress the part. YAMAs, however, unlike BOMU awards, are only open to musicians whose music features on their radio station.
The station of course has been criticised for excluding other musicians, whose music falls outside of the station programming.
Yarona deserves a big applause considering that their awards started last year, but they are already giving a tough challenge to BOMU awards, which have been running for quite some time. The awards were up to standard, and those who attended could not stop talking about them.
Thapong Artist of the
Year Awards (TAYA)
The awards seem to be growing as this year, the number of submissions increased to 104 from last year’s 84. While one of the judges expressed that artists still had a long way to go in meeting international standards, the judging criteria for the awards was of high standard. The judges selected winners based on creativity, originality, mastery of the medium, subject matter, composition, execution and presentation of the artwork.
Thapong through TAYA and its other events is improving awareness of the arts, for the benefit of artists and the nation.
Thapong has and continues to assist a lot of artists, by offering them residency and giving them exposure through a number of activities.
Nna le Seabe HIV and
Art Awareness Exhibition
This is a good initiative by government through the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture. The exhibition does not only challenge artists to come up with meaningful works, which have long lasting effects, it also offers visual presentation on the fight against HIV/AIDS. The artworks on display at this year’s exhibition showed a lot of growth amongst the artists. Some artists captured real life scenarios, including the pain and suffering those affected live with, after the victim dies. Many of the artists who exhibited showed a lot of creativity.
Francistown Meat Festival
The inaugural Francistown Meet festival received a lot of bad reviews. The event was labelled a flop, and some even went as far as accusing the organisers of overhyping the event, and making false promises. Some newspaper reports termed the festival ‘the flop of the year’, after attendees complained that there was acute shortage of meat, and that the organisers had advertised a rich line-up of acts, but unfortunately on the day none of the big names on the line-up showed up. One of the organisers in media interviews said Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) brought the meat late in the afternoon, which he said messed up their programme. BMC, however, distanced itself from the event saying they never had an agreement with the organisers. Another organiser said they found the venue in a mess on the day of the event, resulting from the Kelly Khumalo show the previous night. All the same, most of those who attended the event were fuming, and some were demanding their money back. It was the first installment of the event and hopefully the organisers have learnt their lesson and will use that to improve their event next year that is if they intend to turn it into an annual event.