Don’t you miss the Namibia Annual Music Awards? Don’t act like you do not miss the chatter on who will take the big awards like male artist of the year and the female artist of the year. 

Don’t act like you do not miss the anticipation of who will possibly host it. Don’t you miss the gossip about how the awards favoured some artists and pooped on others? Don’t you miss the anticipation of the town that would host it? 

Don’t act like you do not miss looking forward to the possibilities of blunders by everyone from the hosts, to the performers and much less the people tasked with handing out these awards. Listen, I know I’m as hard as they can come when it comes to critique. I know I am ruthless when it comes to putting my affiliations aside and calling a spade a spade, but the good Jehova knows I miss the Namibia Annual Music Awards. 

I miss the fact the awards got the whole country talking – people from the south, north, east and west! The awards even got people talking who do not give a f*ck about Namibian music. You know those “Dei k*k speel nie op my TV nie” type? Yeah, even them MFs wouldn’t miss the award ceremony. I miss how Twitter later got involved. 

I miss how Namibia trended across the continent on Twitter because of the awards. The awards demonstrated how funny we can be as a people. Amidst serious unhappiness about the governance of the country, the awards provided that comedy relief on Twitter.  Notwithstanding that, the awards were a serious hunting ground for new talent and I miss that. 

I miss how the awards stuck to its philosophy of unearthing new blood. Remember how StarDust won best group and best house in 2015? Or how Doris broke people’s hearts by winning best afro pop in 2017? At the time, it was...wtf is Doris? Or 2019 when Lindsey upset the odds by beating Tswazis and D-Naff to the best gospel award? We will never forget the uproar that came with Monique English winning as best female artist of the year.  

Someone cutting onions? Stop! You can say whatever you want about the awards and its backers (MTC and NBC), but one thing that we can all agree on is that the awards played a humongous part in shaping the Namibian entertainment industry. I say entertainment rather than music industry, because the awards ignited the whole industry and not just music. 

Journalists were involved, radio was involved, TV and other forms of the entertainment and arts discipline as well.  I was lowkey hoping that a huge multinational company would have adopted the awards by now. But I guess that’s too much to ask of companies who make millions of dollars in one day countrywide. Aluta Continua! Until the next Loop, we say #GMTM                                                      

* Need an MC? I do not post naked pictures or have a 100k followers but after 10 years of MCeeing, I think I can do the job. Contact me for a quote at naobebsekind@gmail.com