Online Reporter
. . . Meet the woman behind the invitations
Lawrence Moyo
SOCIALITE Tyra “Madam Boss” Chikocho’s imposing social media numbers and relative elegance are the main reasons she was invited to the 2025 BET Awards on Monday.
Madam Boss, who has around four million combined followers on the various social media platforms, was an invited guest at the BET Awards for the second successive year, having made her debut last year.
Her social media footprint includes two million followers on Facebook, one million on Instagram, 672 500 on Tik Tok and 117 000 subscribers on YouTube.
She rocked Zimbabwean social media platforms with visuals at the awards, including pictures with global heavyweights like Tyler Perry and Fresh Prince, among others.
Perry is the man-of-the-moment as his latest offering ‘Straw’ has taken the movie industry by storm and is top of the Netflix’s Global Top 10 chart and attracted 25 million views in the opening week.
Madam Boss’ presence at the awards has generated interest on social media with speculation and confusion on how she found herself at the glamorous event for the second successive year.
Now, the person behind Madam Boss’ appearance at the BET Awards has explained how the popular influencer was invited to the event in back-to-back years.
United States-based Zimbabwean, Shaleen Nullens, popularly known as Ms Shally, was behind Madam Boss’ presence at the 2024 and 2025 BET Awards.
Ms Shally is popular for being the PR manager for the late Genius “Ginimbi” Kadungure and was also behind a number of international music shows in Harare.
Top on the list is the tour by American hip hop giant, Rick Ross in November 2022.
In an exclusive interview with H-Metro yesterday, Ms Shally said Madam Boss fitted the bill in terms of their expectations when issuing invitations.
“Basically, the criteria is someone with high influence in Zimbabwe, someone who also represents the country well. There are other people that we see are right people to qualify to represent Zimbabwe at the BET Awards but sometimes they might not be available with their busy schedules.
“It’s open to people with a huge following, people with a big influence, people we feel can represent the country well.
“So, we went with Madam Boss twice because we just feel she represented the country well last year but we would love to have new people to represent the country. It’s not just limited to Madam Boss, we would love to have more people to represent the country.”
Expanding on Madam Boss’ invitation, Ms Shally said
“I invited Madam Boss this year and I also invited her last year. I also think that it’s good for my country Zimbabwe to also get people from there representing at the awards.
“If you look, musicwise, we still do not have any Zimbabweans who have been nominated on the BET stage.
“My hope is to also push when it comes to the Zimbabwean musicians so that we can have our music on the platform. For now, it is a start to have Madam Boss representing the country as a guest. But the whole point is to get to the music and get our nation to be recognised.”
Ms Shally now spends most her time in Washington and Los Angeles although she visits Africa on occasions.
“Roar Entertainment, which is a company which I co-founded, has a contract with BET to do events. Basically, they want me to be the company that merges the two cultures -the international cultures and the American culture.
“So, I am in charge of doing all the VIP events of BET International leading to the BET Awards. So I can select people from certain countries that are not nominated (for the awards) that we think will be good people to exchange cultures with the USA artists, the USA talent.
“With the wide network of connections that I have, I am connected to other A-List celebrities with their events where they ask me to invite people from the international space that their VIPs can come and mingle with also at their events.
“So I am signed to bring people, cultures together. So, when Madam Boss comes, she comes under the invitation I would have sent her and the BET International side,” said Ms Shally.
Apart from the entertainment industry, Ms Shally is also into the trucking business in her quest to be among the top influencers on the continent.
“I am in the trucking industry and the two are my main interests. I am in the US for most of the time. I do come to Africa still; I still have other contracts of doing shows in Africa that I have signed so I still have a base on the continent though I spend most of my time in the USA. I am mainly based in Washington and Los Angeles.
“There will be something big that I am currently working on. I have already signed a contract but that’s something that we will be announcing soon.
“It is with a different company but still quite as big as the BET Awards and still in the bracket of bridging the American and International cultures. I am not stopping when it comes to bridging the cultures with America.”
Mathew Masinge