Music of Thursday, 7 April 2011

Source: Hi Newspaper

Samini's Manager: GMA Tickets Too Expensive, Plaques Too Cheap

Tickets to next Saturday's Ghana Music Awards is Ghc75 and Ghc150 for V.I.P, but Tony Pun Danning, manager of the multi-nominated Samini..., . ..has added his voice to the seemingly increasing complains that "the charge is too high considering that core fans of our artistes would miss the action apart, meanwhile after making the large earnings from the show, organisers ,Charterhouse do not give back enough to the industry".

Speaking to Hi Newspaper on his artist, Samini's chances of picking any of his four GMA 2011 nominations, Tony preferred to handle an issue he considered equally pertinent before going to my question: "The figures are outrageously high, meanwhile musicians whom the show was made for are not paid enough for their performances plus the take-home award plaques are unbelievably too cheap for the hype and money made by the organisers"

He said Ghana Music Awards was now a big brand after twelve years of activation and didn't expect organizers to [still] be crying about not making profits out of the show"

"Who then is making all the money?" He asked. Tony would like to back his claim about low quality of the award plaques on this experience: "Just last October at the launch of Samini's C.E.O album, we had to glue two of the Ghana Music Awards plaques to enable us display them; meanwhile plaques of all the other international awards Samini had won were still strong", he said.

Samini has been nominated in four categories including the big one: Artist of the year alongside No Tribe, Cecilia Marfo, Castro, V.I.P, Kwabena Kwabena and strongest contender- V.I.P. "Samini hopes to grab as many as possible, especially the big one because he trust his fans appreciate his effort on the stage last year.

Other categories Samini is hopeful of grabbing honours include Afro Pop Song of the Year (Sweet Mistake) and Reggae Song of the Year (Trigga). Samini is among the only three artistes (alongside Trigmatic and Nacy) with two different songs been nominated- Sweet Mistake, Trigga, and album C.E.O have been nominated in the Album of the year, Artiste of the Year, Afro-Pop Song of the Year, and Reggae Song of the Year.