Last night the Zim hip-hop awards were held in Harare at Long chan Plaza.Urbanculxure was part of the nominees for best online media category which was scooped by ZimBuzz a Harare based entertainment news portal. We have compiled the highs and lows of the awards. We will start with the highs.
1.Time management was on point on part of the organizers.
2.The venue was also not bad
3.The sound was good even though the D.js messed up here and there.
4.The red carpet was on point but could have been better.
5.The stage was properly set.
The low’s
1.The M.C’s okay let us say one of the male M.C D.j Tawas was too much of a clown and caused unnecessary confusion,he was very unprofessional and annoyed the crowd with his lame jokes and attire.
2.We at urbanculxure feel like some of the Nominees already knew that they have won, from studying their actions and the way they presented themselves.We can safely say the awards were staged.
3.The voting system was not transparent for an internationally so-called recognized awards,we feel better platform/system,website voting system could have been established to ensure fair play ground for all the nominees.We feel #Whatsapp was not transparent for awards of this magnitude.
4.The stage was not well managed by the organizers,you could see random people jumping to the stage during performances e,g during Takura`s performance.In a nutshell it turned out to be a circus.
5.These Zim hip-hop awards do not fully represent the entire spectrum of the Zim hip-hop culture and seem to be centralized and personalized commodity run by one individual or individuals.
Bonus the artists collected the accolades YES..
Yes we saw it,but where is the money “Show us the money”these awards do not benefit the artists or nominees financially there are a platform to massage individual ego’s and propel the one man`s agenda.
In conclusion we acknowledge that we were part of the awards this year and we are very happy about it.However we would like to see this platform being improved and we want to see change.
This platform is a national platform it should not be monopolized various stakeholders in the arts and entertainment sector should be involved to make it a fair and a credible award ceremony.
International platforms like MtVbaseSouth and other hip-hop culture pioneers might endorse the awards but the fact will still remain.This platform is too centralized to be called a national ceremony.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Pictures by Nigel Ndlovu
