The 28th South African Music Awards was nothing short of drama. As with any awards show, artists and fans will complain about someone being snubbed and it was no different with #SAMA28.
While the organisers tried to their best abilities to put on a top-class production, the show unfortunately was not without minor glitches. Sound issues being one of them.
One thing that stuck out at this year's awards was the lack of South African A-listers, especially from the amapiano scene. Several category winners were not in attendance.
The reasons varied for each artist with some amapianos top acts such as DJ Maphorisa, Kabza De Small, Uncle Waffles, Daliwonga. DBN Gogo, Young Stunna and Focalisitic, on international tours.
Considering that the date of the awards is announced well in advance one has to wonder whether these artists were unable to shift their international tour dates to cater for the once highly considered awards. Or they didn’t want to.
After the show, DJ Maphorisa’s tweet showed the middle finger to the awards ceremony and made his thoughts clear as he remarked that the awards brought no money to their table.
“U cnt cheat the numbers🤪 n f*** the samas forever 🤞🏾 doesn’t even bring food on the table,” he tweeted.
It would have been a key moment in the amapiano culture to have these game-changing acts perform on the well lit stage as they have ruled the music scene for the past two years.
The snub does not only extend to amapiano artists even big hip hop acts were nowhere to be seen. AKA, Cassper Nyovest, Blxckie, Nadia Nakai and Kwesta all opted to engage with the awards from a distance.
Rumour has it the organisers did try to book Mzansi top acts for the awards but they were all too busy for the awards ceremony.
If the biggest stars of the music industry are unable to make it or not willing to make time for the awards post the pandemic, this raises the big question: Are they worth the time and money?