DJ Qness Explains Samthing Soweto’s Controversial Nomination At The Amapiano Awards. Last week, the first annual SA Amapiano Awards were announced with a string of nominees. The list sparked controversy on social media with some people questioning whether the list was as accurate as it should be.
Addressing the issues around certain acts making the cut and not others, Ndlovu said that this year’s nominees are based on projects and contributions made between January 1, 2020, and March 31 2021 and many of the names that have been raised are actually nominated but appear as featured artists.
Nominees are charged based on their work from January 2020 to March 2021, Samthing Soweto dropped an album in 2020 titled ‘iSphithiphithi’. “He was featured again on Scorpion Kings album which was dropped in January 2020, and that album had emcimbini. So I think people should look at the list, look at the artist and criteria. If you look at the original poster that came out that had the names, you’ll see the I’m sure you guys know, if you look at a piano song, you’ll see that there are 6/7 artists on the song but 5 of them are features while 2, for example, are the main artist of the song,” he explained
“For example, Umsebenzi Wethu is a song by Busta 929 and Mpura featuring Mr Jazziq, Zuma, Lady Du and Reece Madlisa. But the nomination goes to Busta 929 and Mpura as they are the main artists, and the others appear as featured artists,” he added.
He said it was wrong that there was no amapiano awards show in 2017, 2018, 2019, or even last year, because that means everyone who worked hard during those years could not be awarded and that’s the exact wrong, they were now trying to fix. “We unfortunately couldn’t consider a song from 2019 for a Song of the Year category this year. So, this means if you are an amapiano artist, moving forward you know that there is an official awards show whose intention is to celebrate your work.”
