Wizkid has been stripped of his 2016 award for MTV EMA for Best African Act. It is not news that Tanzanian singer Ali Kiba has that award as it is.

But only one thing comes to mind with this development and it is the fact that in 2015 when Wizkid was nominated for Best African Act at the UK’s Music Of Black Origin (MOBO), the body language in his Fader magazine interview suggested he didn’t really care what the outcome would be.
These were his exact words:

“My real fans know I am not really about that kind of thing.

“That was not the reason why I fell in love with music.”

It sounded a bit standoffish, bold and indifferent of him.

But he had every reason to feel a certain type of way because he was looking at a whole bigger portrait, he had a new wave in mind and this was the picture defining his train of thought at the time. It was something more iconic as we are beginning to see today.

He hadn’t synergized enough with Drake and there was no One Dance at the time, but there was an Ojuelegba remix which was already easily burning through major corners of global music.

The song set an ideal foundation for One Dance which was created by both stars in April 2016 and as a result of which the world is now nicely in tune with our sounds.

But Wizkid was valid in his remarks about the MOBO Awards for last year, at least to an extent.
He called out the BET Awards in June 2016 for not airing live the category for Best International Act from Africa. And who better to speak up than the 26-year-old who had won both the MOBO and the BET before now?

The feeling is sanguine for the AYO crooner now, more than ever, and it is understandable why.

As for the MTV EMAs; he’s had quite a bit of not-so-successful runs, but does it matter? Does it define the core of his global following and acclaim? Hardly any possibility of that.

With 2015, Wizkid got his third nomination for the Best African Act category at the MTV EMA but lost out to Diamond Platnumz. It was only a pre-award nomination for him here anyway.

But before then, he was nominated in 2012 but lost out to Dbanj, then in 2013 and lost out again to LCNVL.

So clearly, his history with the MTV EMAs isn’t something laudable as his fourth nomination against Black Coffee, Cassper Nyovest, Olamide and Ali Kiba has seen him losing yet again.

On the one hand, it is impressive results have gone this way as international awards for African entertainers are not the exclusive preserve of Nigerian stars in any way.

You don’t put in work, you don’t get nominated. You get nominated but don’t get the votes, you don’t win. Fair enough.