Trace, the African multimedia giant behind Trace TV and Trace Radio, held its inaugural music awards on Sunday night, which was taglined “Celebrating African Music.” It was held at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, and hosted by Angolan supermodel Maria Borges, alongsideNigerian music star D’banj. Trace promised a night of glamour and music and delivered on both fronts. But they deserve the most praise for living up to their pan-African theme, which was hinted at several times on the night, especially by the hosts who often emphasised the importance of the event to African music: “The biggest celebration of afrocentric music worldwide” and “The biggest concentration of the biggest African superstars.
This went beyond mere words, as the ceremony called on over fifty different performers from over twenty different countries, with nearly as many different languages spoken or sung on the night. One of D’banj’s first statements was to specifically reiterate that the event would not be limited to Nigerian music, but expand to accommodate others: a difficult, yet necessary task when you consider Nigerian music’s dominance and its defacto tendency to dominate African music award shows. Categories were therefore carefully segmented into regional divisions, but this could have done with more uniformity rather than dividing categories along geographical lines—like Best Artist East Africa and Best Artist Northern Africa—and others along linguistic ones, like best Anglophone and Francophone artists.
A few others, too, were awarded to non-African regions, like Best Artist Indian Ocean or Best Artist Brazil, and it was not always clear why these areas were chosen for recognition. Some categories, however, were spot on , such as the Best Producer award which recognizes a producer’s efforts over the course of a year. as against the Headies’ system that highlights a single song from each nominee.
When geographical and linguistic barriers were removed for the general categories, like Best Anglophone Artist, Best African Artist and Best Collaboration, Nigerian music stars expectedly led the way in nominations and awards. Rema emerged the Best Global Artist, a non-voting category awarding the African act with the biggest global impact—an easy win for the man that created Calm Down, the most streamed African song of all time. Asake took home the prize for the Best Anglophone artist, while Davido was crowned the Best Male Artist. Of course, this presented a paradox that is common to awards, because how can the best male artist emerge from an anglophone country and not claim the two awards? These were, however, voting categories, so the organisers can only do so much to ensure congruity.
The winners reacted in different ways. Asake was not present at the event, and he did not record an appreciation video. Rema, ever the charismatic, gracious award recipient, went through two well-thought speeches for both his plaques (including his win for Calm Down as Best Song). Davido, on winning the Best Collaboration award with Unavailable appreciated voting fans and his co-performer Musa Keys. Other Nigerian winners on the night were Yemi Alade for Best Music Video (Baddie) and Burna Boy,who was absent, for Love, Damini, the Album Of The Year.
25 awards were handed out in the event which lasted four and a half hours, with the intermissions filled with performances by a variety of stars from across the continent and beyond. Thus the award ceremony doubled as a large African music concert. Notable Nigerian performers included Davido, Pheelz, Yemi Alade, Mr. Eazi and Odumodublvck. Performers from other African countries included the Soweto Gospel Choir, Camidoh and Diamond Platnumz. Trace’s inaugural award show was altogether a well-crafted event and was all but free of technical hitches. D’banj’s microphone once had transmission problems, even after it was replaced, but that was about the extent of the night’s technical issues.
Rema, in his award speech for Calm Down, admitted that the Trace awards was the “one of the most amazing award [ceremonies] I’ve been to in Africa,” and acknowledged that the organizers have executed the first edition while scaling over most of the problems facing indigenous awards, such as improperly labelled award categories, technical glitches, and the lack of well-written prompts for the hosts. As Western award institutions start to create African categories, it becomes imperative for home-originated organizations to document and reward the strides taken by African artists. Trace joins the few other organisations that are doing this, like the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) and the African Muzik Magazine Awards (AFRIMMA), and a well-done inaugural edition gets them off to a flying start.