Nominations for MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMA’s) were announced late on Thursday across 13 categories, but the competition for the best male category is biggest battle amongst major heavy weights on the continent.
The nominees for Best Male Artiste are two of Nigeria’s finest, Davido and Wizkid – then South African rap maestro AKA, Ghanaian genius Sarkodie, and exciting Tanzanian talent Diamond complete the list.
DAVIDO
Davido won the Best Male Award and Artiste of the Year at the 2014 edition of the MAMA’s and the singer has not had any major release since June 2014. Still, he has been nominated again this year based on the continued success of his older songs and recent collaborative efforts with likes of Uhuru, Orezi, Kiss Daniel and others.
He’s big release titled Fans Mi featuring Meek Mill came out just in time to give him a big boost for this year’s nominations.
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WIZKID
Wizkid is well-positioned and must be feeling very good about his chances of snagging the best male awards this year. He is undoubtedly one of Nigeria’s and Africa’s biggest acts who hasn’t had much luck with awards and especially MTV base Africa award, which he has never won.
In contrast to Davido, this Afro pop singer has a lot of musical material with the release of his latest album in September 2014 titled Ayo, which has been a smashing success by any measure. And with several hit videos from his latest collection and growing international appeal, it looks like this is going to be Wizkid’s lucky year.
The two Nigerians have the stiffest competition coming in the form of two rappers. One from South Africa, AKA, and the other from Ghana, Sarkodie. In the last year, they’ve both made their mark and established their musical prowess.
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AKA
Kiernan Jordan Forbes, who goes by the stage name AKA, released his latest album, titled Levels, in June/July 2014. With hit tracks and videos which include the Fela-inspired Jealousy, All Eyes on Me featuring Nigerian afro beat protégé Burna Boy, Congratulate, Let Me Show You and many other notable songs with widespread appeal, he’s become well-known for his trade across Africa.
SARKODIE
Then there is Ghanaian genius Michael Owusu Addo, reverently known as Sarkodie. He’s rap prowess is gaining more international recognition with his third nomination for BET’s best international act Africa. He won the Best International Act: Africa category at the 2012 BET Awards, and was nominated in the same category at the 2014 BET Awards.
However, Sarkodie hasn’t put out much material in the past year except for collaborations and a few singles for his new album release this year titled ‘Mary’, dedicated to his late grandmother who died in 2012.
DIAMOND PLATNUMZ
The nominee from Tanzania is Nasibu Abdul Juma. Popularly known as Diamond Platnumz or simply Diamond, he is a Bongo Flava (Tanzanian hip hop) recording artiste and singer best known for his hit song, Number One.
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The Tanzanian’s latest chart-topping single featuring Nigeria’s flavour titled Nana is one of the biggest videos of the past two months with over a million views on YouTube in just over a week of its release. He also featured on Iyanya’s Nakupenda and Waje’s hit song Coco baby
The MAMA’s will take place at the Durban International Convention Centre (Durban ICC), KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on Saturday July 18, 2015.
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