Why Sauti Sol Didn't Bring Home an Award From MTV MAMAs 2015

Sauti Sol has done us proud over the years. It has scooped awards both locally and internationally, as recognition of their tenacity, creativity, relevance and passion.

This year, the quartet was nominated as the Best Group in Africa at the 2015 MTV MAMA awards. Although they gave a terrific performance, they did not bring home the much anticipated award. East Africa generally did not do well at the MAMAs. Even the legendary Dr. Jose Chameleon (Joseph Mayanja) didn't bag an award. If it were not for Diamond's luck (yes, luck!), we would come back home completely empty handed.

It is easy to say that our poor performance at the MAMAs can be attributed to strong rivals from artistes across the continent. Yes, the competition was good. However, I am persuaded to think that the odds were in their favor. How else can we explain why the winners were either from Nigeria or South Africa.

Here is my theory on why we did dismally at the MAMAs 2015. For starters, MTV, the channel sponsoring the awards, has a great following in Nigeria and South Africa. Most (all?) of its presenters are from those countries. Most of the artistes hosted and profiled in its shows are from those two countries. And here is the final nail into our musical coffin: most of the airtime is given to music from either Nigeria or South Africa. I haven't watched the channel for about a month now, StarTimes without any communication to me, withdrew it from my free to air list of channels, but I think nothing much has changed. See, if we cannot watch the channel, are we likely to be featured in its shows?

The place of language in the arts has been widely debated. Let us not go into that right now but suffice it to say that the choice of language a writer or an artiste chooses greatly determines the reach of his/her work. Nigerians and South Africans don't really get Kiswahili. They are unlikely to vote for a good song they do not understand. To bridge this gasp, some artistes like Diamond (see why he won?) have done several collaborations with artistes from those regions. I only remember one collabo between Sauti Sol and Iyanya. One is not enough!

Lastly, and this is related to the first point, the large audience of MTV is in West Africa (read Nigeria) and South Africa. These are way populous than us. Now, this is where Mutahi Ngunyi's tyranny of numbers thing comes in. Democracy, the concept upon which voting in the awards was based, is really punitive to minorities. Peter Kenneth is a gentleman, astute and focused. Martha Karua is a tough lady who is unbwogable in the face of male-dominated competition. Abduba Dida is a teacher with a tolerable measure of humor. They all flopped at the elections because they didn't have the numbers. East Africa flopped at the MAMAs because it didn't have numbers!

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Our athletes have confirmed to us that we are indeed the hot bed of champions. We emerged number one at the World Championships in Athletics in Beijing, China. Congratulations Team Kenya! We are so proud of you!