Artists Disqualified from Metro FM 2008 Awards

By Lebohang Mpede , 26 Oct 2008

Metro FM, which named the 2008 Metro FM Award nominees three weeks ago, has done a u-turn and disqualified at list 9 of them.

The reason for the disqualification is simple because the station did not verify the validity of the awards’ entries.

“DJ Clock has a rocking album but he wasn’t nominated, so how do you take such awards seriously?”
Euphonik

The disqualified artists include Jimmy Dludlu, Bheki Khoza, Nthando, Danny K, hip-pop start Maggz, Seed, Loyiso Bala, mzansi house Dj Euphonik and Giggs Superstar.

DJ Euphonik said: “It (the disqualification) does not bother me because I have done my job to get the album going. The album has already gone platinum.”

“DJ Clock has a rocking album but he wasn’t nominated, so how do you take such awards seriously?”

Max Mogodi Ghetto Ruff public relations manager said they were surprised from the beginning when Maggz was nominated without them submitting his album.

“How do you nominate an artist whose album is still to be released?” he asked.

In a bid to make up for their blunder, the station replaced the nine nominees with new ones.

Unathi Nkayi, who works for the station, still remained as one of the nominees despite her album being released after the cut-off date.

The station said in a press statement: “After carefully rechecking all the nominees, we realised some of them do not qualify for the 2008 awards. We offer our sincere apologies to the public, the artists concerned and to the South African music industry for any inconvenience or confusion these glitches may have caused.”

This is another very disappointing event that will raise questions over the integrity of Awards give in South African, after some high profile artists boycotted the SAMAs early this year.