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In the late hours of Sunday, September 3, 2023, the Headies hosted its 16th edition with some of Africa’s biggest stars in attendance. Acts like Rema, Asake, Burna Boy, and Odumodublvk were rewarded for the great year they had live on stage. However, the show abruptly ends without a female category being announced on stage.
Categories like Best Female Artiste, Recording of the Year, Best Vocal Performance (Female), Headies Viewers Choice, Best R&B Album, Best Alternative Album, Best R&B Single, and more were not announced live but were unveiled nearly five hours after the show had ended.
Although artistes like Victony had thanked the Headies for the recognition, female artistes like Ayra Starr and fans of the award show could not help but wonder why an award that celebrates the greatness of African acts would decide not to announce one of their main categories (Best Female Artiste) on the live stage.
“I will never be grateful for winning a category that wasn’t even deemed fit to be announced on stage! Best female artiste na beans? We work hard, every single one of us! I’ve seen Tiwa record four hit songs in the same night, Tems breathes and lives for music. We didn’t deserve such nonchalance! Nigeria, you didn’t raise me to settle for less,” Ayra Starr had tweeted.
We reached out to The Headies for comments, and a representative of the institution mentioned that it had nothing to do with the award being nonchalant to the women’s wins. They disclosed that the categories were not announced due to time constraints.
“It is not a male or female conversation. The Headies is an award show celebrating artistic ingenuity, and we reward artistes. There are about 35 categories, and announcing all the categories in one night is going to make the award show drag longer than three hours,” they told Netng.
The award show, which had started its red carpet by 7 pm, had proceeded to its live show by 12 am and ended a few minutes before 3 am. “We had announced the winners of some categories, voting and non-voting; it just wasn’t on the stage because of time. There’s no bias or gender conversation. It was just because we were short on time,” they added.
Although many fans have gone hard on the organisers for not presenting the female awards on the live show especially because the Best Male Artiste, Rema, was awarded on the live stage, some pundits, however, believe that Headies intentions should not be seen as an attempt to undermine the work Nigerian female artistes have put into their craft in the past year.
The post Headies Tells Netng Why ‘Best Female Artiste’ Award Was Not Announced On Live Show appeared first on Nigerian Entertainment Today.
