The Sunday Mail
THE 14th edition of the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) was held last Saturday before a colourfully dressed full house at the Rainbow 7 Arts Theatre in Avondale.
As largely expected, The Sunday Mail’s Garikai Mazara scooped the Outstanding Print Journalist of the Year award, making it three years in a row – out of four consecutive nominations – that the weekly has won the prestigious gong.
But as has become tradition with the awards ceremony, there had to be one or two categories that the adjudication process differed with public sentiment, something that is largely expected of an awards ceremony of this nature, especially in categories like music, where opinions openly differ.
Whether Suluman Chimbetu deserved his Outstanding Musician of the Year award or not, the audience made their opinion known as they had to interrupt Sulu’s acceptance speech, singing Tocky, Tocky, Tocky, who many thought deserved the gong, given the manner in which he dominated the airwaves last year. To make up for losing the Outstanding Musician gong, Tocky Vibes, born Obey Makurume, won awards for Outstanding Song and Outstanding Album (though some are of the opinion that his “Mhai” compilation was never released as a full album but was a product of piracy).
In the literary category, some raised questions how Memory Chirere’s “Bhuku Risina Basa (Nokuti Rakanyorwa Masikati)” won an award when Ignatius Mabasa, the publisher of the book, sat on the adjudication panel.
Away from the adjudication process, of which the National Arts Council did a commendable job this year to make public the judges, there were a number of technical hitches, some which might have caused the delay of the screening on the event on television, when it was supposed to have been live.
Besides Leeroy Gopal, the “Yellow Card” star, making probably the most stupid mistake of the evening, referring to Deputy Minister Tabeth Kanengoni as a “he”, the event was replete with errors from start to finish, some of them too elementary.
For instance, The Sunday Mail, without doubt the biggest and most known weekly in the country, was referred to as The Sunday Press, when nominees were being announced in the Outstanding Print Journalist category.
Then the speech of the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Andrew Langa, who was present at the event though, was a recorded one and had many hiccups, leaving the audience and those who watched at home, wondering if any editing was done on the recorded clip. Then in some categories the nominee names and pictures did not come on the screens, leaving the prize presenter clueless, as there was no back-up.
As much as controversy has been part and parcel of the awards, unpredictability has equally been synonymous with NAMA.
With last year’s winners walking away with a cash prize, of $500 per winner, this year’s prize were mostly personal coaching vouchers, holiday vouchers and DStv decoders, prizes which were randomly distributed.
If winning the NAMA gong, as they have always said, is the ultimate prize, which in any case is as it should be, there should be no accompanying prizes. This way, the organisers do away with the headache of wanting and having the prizes to be uniform.
The world over, the Grammy and Oscar awards to be specific, do not come with cash prizes but with bragging rights, a direction which the local awards should strive to.
When contacted for comment on these and other issues, Elvas Mari, the director of the National Arts Council, referred all questions to Catherine Mtombeni, the communications and marketing manager, who in turn requested written questions.
But by the time of going to print, there were no answers.
