Ghanaian songstress Amaarae has announced her withdrawal from performing at the much-anticipated 2024 Telecel Ghana Music Awards (TGMA).

The artiste, in a recent post, cited a series of unmet technical requirements and a lack of professionalism from the event's production team as the reasons for her decision.

According to Amaarae, her team, consisting of audio technicians, visual experts, and tour managers, travelled directly from a performance in Barcelona to Ghana after having their Primavera show rescheduled to accommodate the TGMA. Despite providing a technical rider in April and following up for weeks, the production manager failed to meet their needs and further delayed her rehearsal by three hours, leading to no rehearsal time for her and her team.

While describing the incident as disrespectful to her and her team, the artiste expressed her deep love for Ghana and her commitment to representing the country with pride.

"For three years now, I have tried so hard to perform at the Ghana Music Awards. Their CEO and my management have worked hard to make it happen, and finally, we were able to align this year—only for my team to be completely ignored and frustrated by their production manager," she wrote.

She emphasized her belief in professionalism and her desire to deliver a high-quality performance for her fans.

The TGMA, now in its 25th year, is set to take place on June 1, 2024, and is sponsored by Telecel. The event promises to be a grand celebration of Ghanaian music, with Chris Attoh returning as the host for the first time since 2016.

The awards aim to recognize the social impact of musicians through the Music for Good Award, sponsored by Telecel.

Read Amaarae's full announcement below:

TGMAs

I flew a team of 10 people—my entire audio tech, visual, and tour management team—12 hours straight from the stage in Barcelona to Ghana. I got Primavera to change my performance date from June 1 to May 30th so I could travel to Ghana yesterday (May 31st), only to get to rehearsals at TGMA last night. Their Production Manager told my engineers that not only did he not fulfill our technical rider request (which they asked for and we provided in April, and which we had been chasing up for weeks), but also that rehearsals were 3 hours behind (I didn’t get a rehearsal last night).

To top it all off, their Production Manager was not picking up calls from my Manager, TM, and FOH engineers this morning to see if they were going to be able to track down the equipment we need. As a result, I have sadly had to pull out of performing at the TGMAs.

For three years now, I have tried so hard to perform at the Ghana Music Awards. Their CEO and my management have worked hard to make it happen, and finally, we were able to align this year—only for my team to be completely ignored and frustrated by their production manager.

GHANA! I love my country deeply, and irrespective of the pushback I’ve gotten from many in this country, I still represent and try to show love. But I don’t want to lie to you guys; I believe in professionalism, and I brought my whole tour team here as an investment in quality because I wanted to put on the best show possible and give you guys the same vim I’ve been giving on all my international shows. But that will not be possible tonight, given the circumstances! We spent a lot of money to come here only to be incredibly disrespected by the Charter House production team. But it is what it is, and I like to stay positive and take things in stride—man proposes, God disposes!

Big thanks to my team—Ms. B, Jess, Tech, Coop, Corey, Chace, Erica, Mike, Janae, Breanna, Esther, Mike Millz, and Olele—who worked so incredibly hard until the last minute to try and make this happen! All the same, my gang and I are going to be outside tonight because we deserve it, so if you see me in the club tonight, say what's up!

Much love!

GA

TGMAs
I flew a team of 10 people - my whole audio tech, visual & tour management team 12 hours straight from stage in Barcelona to Ghana, got Primavera to change my performance date from June 1 to May 30th so I could travel to Ghana yesterday (May 31st) only to get to rehearsals…

— Fountain Baby (@amaarae) June 1, 2024