A Case For Wizkid, Davido, Mr Eazi, Tekno & Other African BET Award Nominees (Assuming Nasty C Gaffe is Indeed a “Glitch”)
This Sunday, June 25, the 2017 BET Awards will be held in Los Angeles, California. As expected, the “Best International Act – Africa” Award will be keenly contested by continental heavyweights pre-dominantly from 3 countries: Nigeria (Wizkid, Davido, Tekno, Mr Eazi), South Africa (Nasty C, AKA, Babes Wodumo) and Ghana (Stonebwoy).
Sometime last week, BET mistakenly revealed the winner of the African category (and apparently a few others) on its website, then pulled it back quickly. However, the damage was already done, as Nasty C, alerted by fans, posted the now-deleted confirmation on his Instagram.
BET eventually released a statement explaining what happened: “An unforeseen technical issue on BET.com’s BET AWARDS show page resulted in several categories revealing randomly selected nominees as winners. We apologize for the confusion to all of the artists affected and to our fans.”
While we attempt to accept BET’s “glitch” explanation, we’d have to wait till Sunday for actual confirmation of the African winner. Before then though, here’s a quick look at each nominee, and their chances of winning.
Note: The Award takes into account achievements mainly in 2016.
WIZKID (Nigeria)
The overwhelming favorite, in my opinion, has to be Wizkid. The hottest artist in Nigeria 2016 took Afrobeats to the next level with Drake’s “One Dance“, and has been going strong ever since. On the strength and success of that feature alone, it’s hard to look beyond Wiz for this one.
TEKNO (Nigeria)
If this BET Award was solely based on the number of hits released, Tekno would run away with it. This guy has dropped back-to-back-to-back bangers since 2015, with Pana becoming the anthem of 2016 in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. SlimDaddyis def one of the hot favorites to land the award.
AKA (South Africa)
AKA is one rapper who has stayed consistent in recent years. One of the hottest rappers in Africa, his nomination in this category makes it 2 in a row, having appeared on the 2016 nominees list; a feat not many achieved before him. That said, it’d be a huge surprise if he wins this, seeing that 2016 wasn’t exactly his strongest year.
BABES WODUMO (South Africa)
Babes Wodumo is probably the shock inclusion on this nominees list. Her claim to fame is her 2016 breakout single “Wololo“. She really hasn’t done much else outside South Africa, if we’re being honest. But the song has done well enough to get her multiple nominations at the 2017 SAMA and Metro FM Awards. I just don’t see her winning this.
