Ghanaian Award Schemes Don’t Recognise Excellence - Zap Mallet
Ghanaian Music producer, Zap Mallet has joined the growing number of stakeholders who think that Award Schemes now choose favourites over excellence
Tanitoluwa J. Adedotun 
Zapp Mallet is pleading with award schemes to leave the selection process to experts instead of the public.
The veteran music producer argued that if awards are left to the public, a nominee who has a huge fan base would always win even if they are not the best choice in the category.
"If the public keeps voting then the award schemes would be a reward for popularity and not hard work," he said.
“I don’t think award schemes in Ghana recognize excellence, they are just popularity awards. They are for those who made the most noise in the year under review.”
According to him, the award schemes for excellence should not involve public voting or review of an artiste’s streams.
“If we want our music to remain at a high level, we should leave award schemes for experts to handle because the public can go in for just anything if they are allowed to decide,”
This he said while speaking to Rev Erskine on Y107.9FM’s LeaderBoard Series.
He used the compassion between local music awards to the BET and Grammy by noting that a public voting system is not the way to go.
“Are the BET, Grammy, and American Music Awards decided by votes? But our story is a different one.”
“If it is not an excellence award, the name should make it clear.”
Zapp Mallet further outlined that his favourite crop of music producers in Ghana.
He noted that young sound producers are not lazy but how they use the new technology for production is the problem.
“Right now David Kyei, Kaywa, yes prophet Kaywa and KODA are my favourite producers. KODA, the artiste, and producer from Takoradi is the one I am talking about. They are mature and there is maturity in what they do.”
“Technology has paved the way for things to be done easily. For instance, I don’t struggle to do things like before. I can just tune and dial and I deal with it and I am done. But at the end of the day, it is not so much about the technology but what you use the technology for. You can use the tech to kill, you can use it to make life. So you can use it to do bad music, terrible music, or good music.”
