Road To The Headies: ‘Artiste of the Year’ Clinical Analysis

Posted by: stiphbami in Celebrity News, News Sep 25, 2012

Last week, I analyzed the Headies Award Category for Album of the Year. This week it’s time to analyze the Artist of The Year Category

Nominees

Wizkid
Ice Prince
Naeto C
D’Banj

This award is for the “most critically and commercially adjudged artiste” in the period under review.

Ice Prince enjoyed mega success with his hit single ‘Oleku‘, last year’s winner for ‘Song of the year‘ and his ‘Superstar‘ follow up was quite the smash hit. He released a couple of singles with varying levels of success, recorded a remix with Gyptian and has been a major feature on the concert circuit but all this hardly makes him a shoo-in for artiste of the year. Some may argue it’s all par for the course for a high flying A-lister.

NaetoC pushed some hit singles and remixes out, got married, headlined this year’s Hennessy Artistry alongside M.I but hasn’t been particularly outstanding critically or commercially.

A lot has been said and written about D’Banj; he probably garnered more publicity (good and bad) than the four other acts put together, what with his break up with Don Jazzy and pitching tents with Kanye West. Truth is, the results of the upheaval at Mo’Hits are still yet to manifest and his international act is still very much evolving so it would be a bit premature to anoint him artiste of the year at this point even as his ‘Oliver’ single became the biggest Nigerian export since ‘African queen’. He has spent most of the time cementing his growing profile in the G.O.O.D music camp and even though his strange howlling at the end of the ‘In the morning’ song doesn’t exactly announce the arrival of a major talent intent on conquering America, it is still far too early to count him out. Although that surely doesn’t help his case here.

P-Square on the other hand took to the other side of the pond, shrugged off the tepid reviews of their ‘The Invasion’ album and hooked up with superstar Akon to record a remix of their party starter ‘Chop my money’ alongside May D. The single caught fire, Katniss-style and stayed on heavy rotation. The video was even better and became an instant Youtube sensation. They did one better, went after Rick Ross for the ‘Beautiful Onyinye’ video and were rewarded with one of the most played videos of the year. Their ‘E no easy’ song was remixed by French R&B star Matt and the already intimidating fan base seems to be expanding rapidly. Can someone hand them the Heady already? This time, it is well-deserved.

Wizkid is fresh off his win for last year’s Next rated car prize and while his career continues to coast along breezily, the Okoye brothers seem to have this one in the bag.