Musician Blakk Rasta is returning some awards he has won over the years, to the awarding organisations.

The Reggae artiste, in a post on Instagram, said that the awards he is returning are ones won through fan voting.

According to him, ‘vote to win’ awards are all “bought”, thus he would prefer to be given awards solely on merit.

“I have said time and again that I do not want to be part of any award scheme that has to do with voting to win. For me, it’s a way of buying votes. Now, if you have an award scheme, you nominate some people and then you ask the fans of these people that you have nominated to vote so that their favourite artiste can win.”

“Then you go ahead and tell them that the more you vote, the more you place your artiste on a higher pedestal of winning and if the artiste doesn’t win, the biggest excuse they normally give, ‘your people didn’t vote’,” he continued.

Blakk Rasta explained that although he did not have any problem receiving the awards in the past, his conscience will not allow him do so now.

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A post shared by Blakk Rasta (@blakkrasta)

He added that he will not participate in a vote to win awards schemes anymore.

“You can be the best, but as long as your people do not vote, you will be the worst. So, I decided that I will not be part of this anymore. It’s done, it’s dusted. In the past, we were part of it. We enjoyed it. But when consciousness hit us, we decided that it was all over, and we will not do it again,” he stated.

Blakk Rasta added that he, however, does not fault his colleagues who are still patronising these awards schemes.

“Many people haven’t come to that consciousness yet…everybody has their time. Their time will come,” he said.