Give it to the headies anyday, they can’t be found wanting when it comes to packing a roomful of stars; a glitterati of stars graced the red carpet from the likes P-Square, Davido, Mavins, Toolz, Eva Alordiah, Julius Agwu & his delectable wife, Dakore, Skales, Kwam1, Pasuma, Victoria Kimani, KCee, the list is endless.
Theoretically, the Hip Hop World awards (The Headies) is the Nigerian Grammys. However, last nights show couldn’t hold a candle to its prestigious counterpart. To start with, the show which was billed to start by 9pm prompt was awfully late. Not only were the audience who by the way kept to time treated to an unending series of sound-checks from the artistes (which i should add was quite distasteful for an event of such caliber), lo and behold a grating voice sauntered in assuring the already cranky audience that the Headies would kick off at 10 sharp.
Imagine the surprise when 10 clocked and instead of getting the show on the road, we were dished another series of sounds, this time around from DJ Lambo. However, even the wheel spinning skills of the talented DJ was only able to keep the boredom at bay for a short time.
Alas, after a painfully long wait, the pre-show kicked off some minutes into midnight with performances from the rookie of the year nominees. After an amateurish performance by Slyde who was unable to engage the audience with his hit single banana even with his backup dancers who seemed to think the world revolved around their braids, one couldn’t help but feel sorry for the next rookie, Yung GreyC who was just lost in a world of her own, thankfully the mavins golden boy, Reekado Banks saved the day with his bevy of energetic dancers.
What happened to Bovi? was the question on most peoples lips when the show proper finally started with Toke Makinwa and ace comedian Basketmouth as hosts. Talking about the chemistry between the two, it was clearly neither here nor there, they seemed to hit it off a few times, other times they were simply trying too hard.
The performances which were a mixed bag of hits and misses, laced with hard to ignore technical glitches coupled with a very unimpressive and rather drab looking stage; kicked off with Nikki Laoye’ s rather funky performance, followed immediately by Northside entertainments leading lady Cynthia Morgan whose performance would have received a nod save for disastrous choice of outfit which had her spending the entire time in an epic only too obvious battle with her overspilling boobs. some artistes decided to take a risk with the live band, the likes of harysong who gave a passable show, kcee anwho went over the top with his an intro from the drum line, wheelbarrow pushing dancers alongside Dauda and Saka who almost stole the show, Yemi Alade never fails to impress with her energetic performances and the headies was clearly not an exception, Davido also opted to perform with the live band which was quite a shocker,in the end the regular more familiar lip synching route would have been a better option, Timi Dakolos performance was quite distracting, too much props, too much drama, too much people on stage, but all was forgiving when he opened his mouth (darnnn the brother can sing), Dr.Sid was able to make the crowd fall in love with Surulere all over again, it was also worthy to note that Donjazzy let the doctor have all the shine as he chose to stay behind with the band, Olamide whose mere presence on the stage brought people to their feet went on to deliver what has been touted as the most crowd pleasing performance of the night
Patoranking with the help of Tiwa Savage brought down the house on ‘Girlie O, Skales performance was pretty much routine, Runtown for some reason chose to perform the less popular ‘successful’, Oritsefemi’s could not exactly be called a performance as he was only on stage to receive his award and for some reason felt the need to sing his whole track on stage, ( not that his fans weren’t feeling it).
It would be a crime to forget Sir Victor Uwaifo whose performance I was preparing to dislike, but quiet shockingly turned out to be one of the most fascinating performances of the night; strumming the guitar like a real pro and showing off with some guitar stunts, ‘the guitar boy’ as he is fondly called ended up manufacturing one of those ‘moments’.
Just when the audience were beginning to find their way out of the hall after a rather long night or morning if you will, the dynamic duo of Psquare were announced on stage, talk about saving the best for the last, the brothers took us on a mind blowing trip through memory lane starting with tracks like senorita, temptation, story, bizzy body, roll it right down to the more recent personally, alingo, Eje Ajo, Donjazzy came to join in the show of awesomeness on their collabo track, leaving the brothers to bring the hall to a crescendo with Shekini. Although they performed mostly to an emptying hall, it was a no less terrific performance.
The Headies wouldn’t be winning any promptness awards, the event was rather too long and lacked some vitals which make for a world class event, however it had its own moments which made it all worthy and reminded us why its regarded as one of the biggest nights in the Nigerian music industry, we can only hope that next year sees them coming back stronger and better, that’s the least we can expect.
