In making Black Coffee the first South African to win a Best International Act Award this weekend, and Stonebwoy arguably the most unpopular candidate to win it the year before, BET seem to be sending a message to Wizkid that his public mutiny last year was not appreciated. Time has put a Band-Aid on some of the issues that his dissent exposed but was the Nigerian superstar right in expressing his displeasure at being treated like what he felt was a second class nominee?
I won’t be attending your preshows and nominee parties if I’m getting the award at 10am before the main show. Same reason I didn’t come back stage to pick up the award when I won the first time.
Wizkid (Twitter), 2015
Make no mistake about it, the BET’s Best International Act Award is more concert and popularity contest than a celebration of musicianship. If artistes were judged more for their artistic prowess, Asa and Mafikizolo would be walking away with the award every year. That said, Black Coffee is something of a break from the norm for an award show that traditionally rewards African pop stars and rap stars. The DJ has had an impressive 12 months, performing at international festivals, winning multiple awards and releasing a platinum-certified album, but in a group that had real continental heavyweights such as Wizkid, Diamond Platnumz and AKA, the house DJ’s selection turned what was always thought to be BET’s selection criteria on its head for the second time.
Wizkid and Sarkodie at the BET Awards in 2012 (Instagram)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Wizkid got his third BET nomination this year, only Sarkodie has as many nominations as the “Ojuelegba” singer. A lot has changed since those two shared the award in 2012 – the plaque is no longer shared by two winners from Africa and artistes no longer get their awards backstage – but we might be nearing the time for yet another change. Whether African artiste’s sense of entitlement in demanding for one is justified is another topic and I’ll address that shortly but if the organizers aren’t proactive in the coming years, they run the risk of the event becoming one that African artistes, especially those with multiple nominations, attend at their greatest convenience, rather than one they asterisk on their calendars.
I love u BET! If I’m in the city when next u doing the award show, I’ll still come to watch.
Wizkid (Twitter), 2015
The challenge here is change to what exactly? The Viewers’ Choice Best New International Act category was introduced recently and it presented African artistes such as Falz an opportunity to win a BET award and Emtee the chance to get a nod as well. This sounds like progress but as far as struggling to get our award presentations aired on the show proper, I believe that’s the wrong fight.
There were 19 categories in total at the 2015 edition of the awards and according to BET’s Director of Programming and Production Lilian Blankson, only 4 or 5 got televised on BET Domestic and International. This was just one of a revelations she made last year after the mini-revolt by Yemi Alade, Fuse ODG and Wizkid.
The executive explained –
Performances sell award shows and make ratings, not the categories. Let’s step up our game and get our music so big they can no longer ignore it.
Make your music more internationally appealing… Think of ways to get all audiences invested. Oliver Twist is a great example. Universal story.
We need to work hard and get our music here in the US. How do people respect your brand when you’re not on the radio?
No African artiste was harder to ignore over the last 12 months than Wizkid – no one, but let me not belabor the point. If the milestone is for African music to get on the US radio first before getting greater recognition by the BET Awards, then we might have to make do with backstage interviews and playing the BET Experience stages for at least a couple more years. As big as “Oliver Twist” got in the UK, it was never officially released in the US and didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Neither did “Scapegoat (Remix)” featuring Kanye West nor “Ojuelegba” nor “African Queen” nor any other Nigerian hit single released in the 10 years in between. US radio is a behemoth with many different markets in different regions, it’s nigh on impossible to get frequent spins in one of the major markets without major label backing.
A large percentage of the music on US radio is rigidly programmed, meaning listener feedback and data analytics is used to decide what music gets played more times than the preference of a DJ or OAP, especially at peak hours of the day. That’s the reason why, if you listen to most big radio stations, the same set of popular songs get played over and over and over again. I had a short career in radio broadcasting, so I took a natural interest in studying the playlist of some US radio stations on and off for a few months and I discovered some interesting trends. Let’s take one of the biggest urban music stations in the US – Hot 97 New York for instance.
This is their last released playlist. With the exception of veterans Fat Joe and Remy Ma and little-known outlier A-Boogie, every single artiste on that playlist has some sort of support from a major corporation – notice how Ayo Jay’s “Your Number” is getting spun already. Except we are okay with our music being played at some obscure time of the day in some obscure radio market, getting on playlists like this should be the goal. Collaborations such as Drake’s “One Dance” will help introduce our acts to the States but in order for our own songs to stand on their own two feet, the approach would have to be more deliberate and strategic.
What I mean is that if Sony Music want to push Davido in the US, they would have to do so with the same vigor as they seem to be doing with Ayo Jay on urban radio stations in order for his music to make a mark. What I mean is that in order for Wizkid’s music to play on “proper radio” in the US, as he once put it, the singer would have to align with a major company for promotion and distribution, whether it be a traditional record company or even an Apple Music. Taking the independent route could lead to his sound becoming peripheral and niche, like say an A-Boogie, rather than popular and mainstream, and push recognition from BET and others even farther away.
As far as our sense of entitlement, it’s a case of familiarity breeding contempt. The BET Awards isn’t some Mickey Mouse contest, it is the biggest award show on cable in the US that we are talking about. Perhaps because of how the network embraced Africa early on, we seem to not understand just how big a deal the award show is. Almighty Beyonce opened up the show this year to put rumors that she has no regards for the ceremony to bed. So barring some freak scandal or a dramatic loss in credibility, the award show will always do far more for us than we can do for it.
7.2 million people in the US tuned in to watch the show on Sunday. To put that number into context, as at 2015 DStv, who have the exclusive rights to broadcast BET International in Africa, had 8 million subscribers on the entire continent. A fraction of those subscribe to the bouquets that show BET International and in a continent where football and Nollywood are king, a further fraction even care to watch the BET Awards. So when the show got aired last night, just how many Africans do you think tuned in to justify our demands for greater recognition? But what about the internet and live streaming? Africa is comprised of 54 countries, English is spoken in more than half of those countries, yet on Twitter the BET Awards trended in only 10 countries.
BET Awards 2016 Twitter Trend Map for Africa for 28/06/16 (Trendsmap)
One thing I can say though is that, out of 8 previous winners of the Best International Act Award, 5 were Nigerians. So at least Nigerian artistes are doing their part to get the eyeballs of Africans, but it’s not nearly enough. I’m not privy to information on the viewing numbers for the BET Awards on the continent but something tells me neither are our artistes. Is their demand for prime time coverage therefore backed by numbers or are we merely making an emotional argument?
If it’s all about emotions, then I personally don’t think Wizkid was wrong in saying his mind last year but I also don’t think we can complain if BET decide to turn its back on his music going forward. Last year’s revolt was all about a feeling and Wizkid, and Yemi Alade, felt they had outgrown the BET Awards’ African artiste treatment and perhaps not the award itself – and that’s fine. However, feelings move fans, numbers move businesses – African music must first put up numbers and prove we can move business, especially Stateside, before we start to carry shoulder.
I am particularly interested in seeing how the One Africa Music Fest holding next month at the Barclays Center does. Bold moves like this will be an important litmus test for our music going forward but we need to keep our pride in an escrow account until those test results come back. We cannot keep bringing few numbers but a lot more potential to the table and expect to be treated like sure bankers in return.
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