by Thinus Ferreira
The murdered rap artist Kiernan Forbes, known as AKA, was the big posthumous winner on Saturday night at 2023's revived 17th Metro FM Music Awards, with his parents and daughter Kairo accepting four awards on his behalf - including Artist of the Year and Best Male Artist - during the live broadcast from the Mbombela-done awards which was once again marred by a litany of technical mistakes and awkward errors.
After he was brutally gunned down in Durban in mid-February, AKA was the biggest winner and scooped up four black Metro FM Music Awards trophies after his death on Saturday night in Mpumalanga, including winning Artists of the Year, Best Male Artist, Best Hip Hop Artist, as well as Best Collaboration Song for Lemons (Lemonade) with Nasty C.
AKA parents, Lynn and Tony Forbes returned to the MMA stage four times, along with his daughter Kairo and other family members to accept their son and dad's four awards.
Lynn Forbes thanked the Megacy - as AKA's fans are known - multiple times during accepting various awards on her son's behalf.
She also dedicated an award to AKA's dad, Tony, and said "I feel that he deserves the Artist of the Year Award because Tony has been absolutely instrumental in introducing Kiernan to music from the moment he was born - through the years, through the different genres of music which became the influences of the music that he made throughout the years".
"I don't think he would have wanted it any differently," Lynn Forbes said.
Raphael Benza, AKA's business partner, said that "it is bittersweet. He is not here with us to really celebrate in the physical. Kiernan for Mass Country has received about six nominations. One of the main things he said every time we were in studio was that he couldn't wait for the audiences to hear it".
"It's great to have a full circle moment. His first album won Best Hip Hop," said Raphael Benza, with AKA's last album that has now won the same honour.
DJ Tira won two awards for Best Kwaito/Gqom Song and Best Music Video for Sikilidi. The Metro FM Legend Award was renamed the Dr Esther Mahlangu Lifetime Achievement Award and given to Mafikizolo.
Nada Wotshela, SABC radio boss, during the back carpet pre-show, said that the SABC and Metro FM Music Awards were "looking forward to a spectacular event that is executed flawlessly" but it was not to be - with the live show filled with various technical, autocue, sound and video mistakes and running more than an hour late into unplanned overtime on SABC1. Instead of 22:00, the awards only ended at 23:15.
Co-produced by Bonngoe TV and Dzinge Productions for SABC1 with Pepsi Pokane and Shandukani Nsengani as co-executive producers, the 17th Metro FM Music Awards which took place in the Mbombela stadium with a lot of empty seats visible, contained a lot of the same mistakes and technical problems that marred this awards show in previous years.
The last time the Metro FM Music Awards took place was in 2017 in Durban, pre-Covid.
After this, the rewards were stopped following a cloud of suspicion from the South Africa music industry over the MMA's credibility, following numerous corruption allegations of being rigged due to payola, the "buying" of awards and collusion in the judging process.
After five years and a hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Metro FM says it has addressed these issues.
On Saturday night, after Makhadzi won for Best Female Artist - her first MMA award - and with the category presenters standing around and dancing on stage for a minute before saying they will accept the award on her behalf, an out-of-breath Makhadzi, who was initially a no-show, stormed onto the stage during the next segment. She fell down as her award was brought to her.
"Today I was supposed to go to Zambia but they've postponed the show," she said afterwards. "I thought if they postpone the show I must go to the awards. Unfortunately, the traffic! You can't believe that I ran from the traffic just to come and collect my award. This is my first Metro FM Music Award. I didn't want anyone to collect this for me."
By Sunday morning at 9:00 there was no press release from the SABC or Metro FM, or the Blueprint PR agency who got paid to communicate with the media, about the awards show or the winners.
Here is the complete list of winners of the 17th Metro FM Music Awards:
Song of the Year
Betusile Mcinga for Ngena Noah
Best Afrosoul-Pop
Zuko SA for Andikalibali
Best Amapiano Song
Deep London for Hamba Wena
Artist of the Year
AKA for Lemons (Lemonade)
Best Jazz Album
Nduduzo Makhathini for In
The Spirits of Ntu
Best New Age R&B Artist
MOE for Me Ever After
Best Collaboration Song
AKA feat. NastyC for
Lemons (Lemonade)
Best Duo or Group
Inkabi Nation for Voice
Mail
Best Female Artist
Makhadzi for
Queen 2.0
Best Gospel Album
Pastor Lungi Ndala for
Victorious Praise
Best Hip Hop Artist
AKA for Mass Country
Best House Song
Skye Wanda for Amazwi
Best Kwaito/Gqom Song
DJ Tira for Sikilidi
Best Male Artist
AKA for Lemons (Lemonade)
Best New Artist
Coco SA for I never
thought
Best Styled Artist
Musa Keys
Best Music Video
DJ Tira for Sikilidi
Best Viral Challenge
Deep London feat Boohle
for Hamba Wena
Dr Esther Mahlangu Lifetime Achievement Award
(renamed legend award)
Mafikizolo
