No big surprises at the MAMAs

Jonathan Mbiriyamveka TV Column
On Saturday KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa played host to MTV Africa Music Awards. About 500 million people across the globe watched the show on MTV Base but the unfortunate thing was that there were NO big surprises.
Most people already knew it was going to be a South Africa/Nigeria affair judging by what we normally see on MTV Base.

Have you ever seen videos from African countries like Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Angola, Ghana, Mali, DRC or Zimbabwe being screened?

If you really want to know how difficult it is to get a video out on MTV Base ask any Zimbabwean musician and they will gladly tell you that it is a no go area.

And I strongly believe that it’s not about the quality of videos we produce, no far from it, the reason is what I would call “the system”. One thing will lead to another. For you to have your videos played first you have to deal those connected to the system.

You have to know who is connected in shooting, editing as well as producing the videos. In other words you have to know all the right people so that even the guy in the library would know when and how to put your video on the playlist.

But outside this, we still watch MTV Base not least because there is no option but because they feature African music here and there.

So the MAMAs are a reflection of what we see on a daily basis and so for anyone to say the MAMAs are not reflective of Africa would be wrong.

So thus as the MAMAs kicked off in KZN there were no surprises because it was something that we have known and accepted over the years.

Strangely though, most people or should I say movie fans had anticipated Marlon Wayans to be a hit as the host of the MAMAs.

Oddly enough, Marlon is not as good as he is on the big screen. His jokes found no resonance with the audience leaving him looking stupid and out of his depth. We will not blame him for badly pronouncing African names but he really should have had a culture crash course so that he could realise that what would be considered funny in the US would certainly not cut it here in Africa.

His take on racial jokes also left a lot to be desired. However, it was good that MTV Base chose Marlon to be the host of the MAMAs but after watching the show, one could tell that he was overwhelmed by what he saw in Africa.

He even admitted that he was happy to among “negros” and blamed the “whiteman on his lips” for his accent . But he also insisted that he was “African American”.

He cracked one about the US being happy about having a white president. “Barack was black and now he is white” he said. He assumed the role of a misinformed and totally ignorant journalist when he tried to clear some misconceptions about Africa as seen by Americans. The idea was not bad just that some of the misconceptions were primitive.

Imagine in this day and age, some American folks thinking Africans practice cannibalism or that as African we give names to flies and all.

For some obscure reason he failed to excite even the dumbest viewers with his slap-stick humour. And how could he take his pants off during an interview?

That said, performance-wise the MAMAs are always a thriller. “Mafikazulu” according to Marlon, Trey Songz, Davido aka Omo Baba Olowo (which means the son of a rich man) and Diamond were good as well as Miguel, the man who once had the gay community going bananas with his hairstyle was on point.

There were standout collaborations including D’Banj who featured on Trey Songs set, “Khona” featuring a host of other musicians including Flavour and Fally Ipupa. Uhuru was another hit with the audience when they performed the song “Y-Tjukutja”.

Another good thing about the MAMAs is that they try and bring African musicians and international ‘A’ listers on one platform. That worked magically when a Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie replaced Kendrick Lamar on Miguel’s “How Many Drinks”. There were other artistes including Ice Prince who featured alongside French Montana.

Until next week remember this is television and its real.