MTN HITMAKER JUDGING THE JUDGES

Hello, dear reader. I am about to do something that has earned me a lot of enemies and perhaps few secret admirers. Well, I know the hazards of my job but I must do it anyways.

Have you been watching the Season IV of MTN Hitmaker music reality show on TV? I have been following keenly and have made several observations. Today, I would like to assess the people who judge the musicians on the show. At least after more than three (3) episodes, it is fair to make this assessment. This is my personal opinion as a writer and a musician.

Eazzy: I start with the only lady judge among the men, Mildred Ashong aka Eazzy. She is a former Big Brother Africa representative for Ghana. I can’t tell what exactly she was brought onto the show to do but I am sure the organizers were not dumb to have employed her.

That notwithstanding, judging the way she judges the contestants, I think she can do better. She sometimes gets it right with the stage performance aspect but when it comes to keys and other technicalities she says nonfa. She has also been very repetitive in her comments not necessarily because there is a repetition of particular mistakes in the acts of the contestants but rather a clear indication that she does that when she has nothing important to say.

I would wish that she takes the show more seriously. She may not have the experience of Offie Cudjoe but she should let us know that she is a musician and not any ordinary person. Most of her comments sound too naïve and unbecoming of a good music judge.

Okyeame Kwame: There is no doubt that Kwame Nsiah Apau aka Okyeame Kwame has a very rich background in music. He knows music, composition, performance, timing, keys etc. In fact, I was even surprised when he once told me in an interview I did with him when I was doing a write – up of a review of his Woara song, that he can read the staff notation. People like that are real musicians.

However, to my chagrin, Kwame is joking on the show. He is not helping groom the artistes. Even if the first two judges would mess up, I expect Okyeame Kwame stay above the level on which he judges. Just like Eazzy, his comments are too ordinary.

There have been times the artistes who came to perform lacked sustainable breath and cardiovascular endurance. There have been times their diction, timing and keys were wrong but the judges wouldn’t say anything about it but rather touch on trivial stuff. I think he should pay critical attention to the works of the contestants and judge them well.

Kwasi Aboagye: Solomon Kwasi Aboagye is one of the people I respect so much in radio. In fact, I was so glad when I once had the opportunity to host him on my show on Vision FM and it has been one of the happiest moments in my radio career. He has mastery over language and wields unbridled intelligence – which virtue is imminent in his questioning skills.

Well, I don’t know his background in music but from the way he judges the contestants, he comes across as one who only enjoys music from the layman’s point of view. He keeps saying, “I didn’t feel your performance” time and again without telling what is really wrong with the performance. In fact, my senior man makes a lot of useless comments; as useless as Yaw Labito’s Aber songs. I would rather he keeps quiet if his other judges take the wind out his sail and he has nothing to say.
Again, I was not happy when last week Thursday Kwasi on his radio show Entertainment Review on Peace FM actually made allusion to the fact that we should check the success levels of the products of the previous MTN Hitmaker editions which had top music savvy personalities as judges.
That was an understatement and it impugns the reputation of music experts like Offie Cudjoe, Bessa Simmons and Hammer, who did very well by educating not only the contestants but also viewers on the previous editions. Is Kwasi trying to tell us that what they [the judges] say on the show do not have any effect on the careers/talents of the contestants or that the previous judges made no impact on the contestants? It does, psychologically. If it doesn’t, the organizers wouldn’t have hired them.

What he should remember is that for an artiste to be successful after the reality show, other factors must be fulfilled. Management, branding, promotion et al. Mr. Judge, your comment on the artiste’s performance could be a necessary and contributory causality to the well – being of the artiste but not a sufficient causality. At least the little Level 100 logic I studied in Critical Thinking taught me this and as a senior man in law school, I know you well know more than I do so it was insulting to have made that allusion.

I also heard my good uncle and soap manufacturer Socrate Sarfo say that the contest was not a music school but a show and that one needs not be musically inclined to judge music. If so, why don’t the organizers get out there and handpick just anybody to occupy the judges’ seats? Why don’t entertainment review programmes get to the streets and randomly pick people to analyze entertainment issues just because it is a ‘show’?

There are a lot of musicians both old and new who learn so much from the comments by the judges on reality shows such as the MTN Hitmaker so we need to do things right. I know there are coaches for the contestants but they work behind the scenes and since we don’t know their input, we may not be able to measure them. The judges are the ones we hear and see. Their judgments largely inform who finally wins the contest, so it’s really a big deal who is chosen to help choose a true hit maker for our music industry.

I agree each of the judges may have been given their tasks. At least it makes sense that we have two musicians and one music presenter on the show. If the two musicians let their music expertise have a bearing on the show, we wouldn’t be worried so much about Kwasi’s ‘layman’ comments.

On a whole, I would score Eazzy 45%, Okyeame Kwame 50% and Kwasi Aboagye 30% for their performance so far in judging the hit maker contestants.

However, I would suggest that henceforth they should employ people who are very experienced in music to be judges – not people who would say they either liked a performance or not, without giving any technically tangible reasons.
I believe MTN Hitmaker is a veritable classroom [not just a show for mere entertainment] and that everything that goes on at the show must be taken seriously.

Kwame Dadzie