14th Headies Review
The biggest night in Nigerian music got some calls right and some others wrong.
The 14th edition of the Headies Awards happened on Sunday, January 21, 2021. Predictably, the winners list has generated twitter threads, hot takes and opinions.
Here is my review of the winners list - the good calls the Headies committee made and the bad calls.
I will leave the production of the awards to the experts.
Good Calls
Brymo won the ‘Recording of the Year’ category for his song ‘Ozymandias’ off his ‘Yellow’ album. This is a good call. Brymo is one of the most visible non-pop acts with a strong discography and his song ‘Ozymandias’ is a record that deserves all the accolades in a scene dominated by pop music.
Joeboy is one of the most brilliant songwriters of his generation and it is only right that ‘Nobody’ by DJ Neptune which features Mr Eazi also won two categories- especially the coveted ‘Song of the Year’ category. If a song dominated and defined the year in review it was definitely ‘Nobody’.
A-Q. What a way to cap a very influential career. A-Q deserves all the flowers he is getting now. As usual Hip-Hop heads are arguing about this. Fuck ‘em heads. Nice win for the Best Rap Album victory.
The Next Rated category is the most famous category at the Headies. It should have a documentary of its own because of the controversies, beef, upsets and tantrums. This year’s winner is hardly controversial. The Port-Harcourt pop diamond by the name of Omah Lay deserved to go home with this award. He dominated and almost monopolized the year in review. He is the first PH act to win it. The PH revolution continues. Pronto!
Fireboy deserved all the awards he got. He is one of the best acts in Nigeria and has dropped better albums than the ‘Big 3’ since the last two years. Facts! Forget hype, international acclaim and plaques. His two albums are better than…..
Bad Calls
I love The Cavemen but their album doesn’t fit into the alternative category. Highlife is one of the most popular genres in Nigeria and one of the bedrocks of Afrobeats. It is hardly an alternative sound. It has huge mass appeal, strong cultural context and history for it to be tagged alternative. BrymO’s ‘Yellow’ should have won this category.
Mayorkun ‘Geng’ is hardly ‘Street-Hop’ in the strict sense. ‘Mafo’ should have taken this award because it was the soundtrack of Lagos street culture for months. ‘Geng’ was more of a fad or flex from the Mayor of Lagos.
Wizkid won the Artiste of the Year category but I find it hard that an artist whose albums weren’t nominated would win this coveted category. Burna Boy or Fireboy should have taken this album because their ‘success’ under the year in review were propelled by commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums.
I feel the Headies should tweak the criteria for this category so it stops feeling like a popularity contest. One day an artist with enough ‘clout’ or larger-than-life personality but minimal music offerings would win this award. This is a hole that the Headies needs to fix.
Yeah, so these are my thoughts. Feel free to drop your comments and opinions.
Shout out to all the winners too. See you guys next year.
It's Asa's Lucid. The cliffhanger at the point where you talked about Fireboy having a better album than the Big 3 was a nice touch too. Nice read.