Why The Headies’ America Experiment Failed

On the 28th of January, in an event tagged the 17th Headies Big Announcement, Ayo Animashaun, CEO of Smooth Promotions, the parent company of Nigeria’s premier music awards The Headies, announced the imminent return of the awards show to Nigeria. This year, The Headies will host two awards ceremonies, one in April for music works released in the last calendar year, and another in December, for works released this year. Animashaun cited the awards show’s desire to leverage the festive atmosphere of Detty December as part of the reasons this year’s edition is slated for December. 

Since the announcement, social media has been abuzz with opinions that run the entire gamut, from criticism to commendation to cynicism. This plurality of opinions is entirely warranted, given the awards show’s abrupt decision in 2022 to change locations to the United States; a volatile decision that left many with a sour taste. After two award nights at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, The Headies is poised to return to Lagos, raising the question of why the show is set to return home. 

The answer is pretty straightforward: the blithe experiment didn’t quite pan out as expected. In a 2022 interview with The Native Mag about the decision to relocate the award overseas, Animashaun cited a litany of gripes, most notably production issues, difficulties in recruiting talent, and not least, cost constraints. “We have lost more money than we have made at the Headies so we make money and lose it the next day.” He further asserted that production costs are significantly cheaper, and the move would herald greater visibility as well as increased partnerships with global media stalwarts. After the initial public furor in 2022, many eventually took the news in stride, surmising that it would herald sweeping changes: better production quality, logistical efficiency, and increased prestige for the show. That however failed to happen. Instead of American relocation transforming the awards show, the show instead transformed America: the same issues persisted. The show’s long history of logistical ineptitude continued to trail it. The production remained painfully poor, down to the set design; if a viewer wasn’t privy to the news of the relocation, they’d think the awards were still being held in the country. The organizers changed locations, but the foundational problems persisted. 

Having established the reason for the show’s return to Nigeria, it’s worth poking at why the relocation abroad failed to yield the expected results. The truth is that regardless of the intentions of the organizers, there were gaping fissures in the plan from the outset. The Headies, Nigeria’s foremost music awards, had not been not keeping pace with Afrobeats’ surreal global proliferation. While a pantheon of Nigerian Pop stars had ascended to global status, the awards show continued to fall short of even local standards. This chasm created a situation where the leading artists in the country increasingly spurned the show, whittling the award’s respectability. They had to do something significant, something decidedly consequential, to turn the rapidly rising tide of discontent. So, they opted for a neat cosmetic solution: moving the show abroad, when they should have scrutinized their operations for weak links, which would hardly have been an arduous task given the myriad of obvious missteps they were making.

The incongruity of their solution begins to come into focus when one considers that the primary reason for jettisoning Nigeria was the show’s poor production quality. Nigeria is by no means a leader in media production but executing a well produced show in Nigeria is not difficult. The bevy of mega churches that populate Nigeria—Living Faith Church, COZA, amongst others—put up and broadcast excellent productions every week. Soundcity MVP Awards, in its heyday, put up great production. There are countless other examples, so citing the show’s production quality as a reason for leaving the country falls flat.  

In as much as a company can be hemmed in by its geographical location, the soul of a company is essentially made up of its employees, the people who are responsible for executing the company’s goals and vision. So, macro changes made without addressing foundational ones—at the heart of which is the topic of internal administrative structure—are always bound to collapse in on themselves. 

What The Headies need to do now to avoid falling into old patterns, is to bring in new forward thinking talents to suffuse their brand with an air of youthful vigor and optimize their operations. There’s a level of innovation and creative propulsion that only comes with the introduction of youthful energy. If the organizers of the event come to this realization in time for the 17th Headies Awards, then perhaps the age-old complaints of creative stagnation and technical difficulties will abate this time.