Organizers of the annual BASS Awards say artistes who are not content with the event’s nomination list should work harder and look forward to next year’s edition of the event.

The annual controversies that arise especially among members of the Reggae and Dancehall fraternity before the main event seem to have heightened this year, with several artistes registering their displeasure about their exclusion in certain categories.

Reggae Icon IWAN and Dancehall artiste Episode were recently in the news accusing organisers of deliberately omitting their names from some categories they wished to have been nominated in.

But Gabriel Boateng, head of Communications at Rackus Production told NEWS-ONE that, “it is rather unfortunate that these artistes would have loved to be in certain categories they are not in, but the truth remains that they have to just look forward to next year, put in more works and just come out with good works that will be nominated.”

“You might have your personal favourite category, but that doesn’t grantee that when you submit your work, you are going to be put in these categories,” he added.

According to Mr. Boateng, there is a competent board specifically set up to handle nominations and voting in each category for the BASS Award.

This board is made up of senior Reggae and Dancehall enthusiasts and activists who have been in this industry for a long time. These people include Daddy Bosco, Black Santino and Root Eye among others.

“They have their criteria for selection and they have things they look at before they nominate each artiste in a category. It is due to the fact that they have certain credibility in the industry that is why they have been put on this board to do this kind of vetting and review of these songs and artistes who come on the BASS Awards platform. For each category, they take a list of artistes and their works and they go through them one by one. So it is based upon voting for selection and voting for categorisation into various groups from the board that get the artistes into these categories they submit their works for,” he stated.

The second edition of the BASS Awards is slated for August 30 at the National Theatre.