The 12 contestants in the MTN Hitmaker reality show will be housed for thirteen weeks during the broadcast of the television series to determine who emerges as winner in the second season of the show. This was made known to a gathering made up of media personnel, bloggers, sponsors, the contestants and their families during a short event to outdoor the contestants last Thursday evening at the poolside of the Oak Plaza Hotel in Accra. An official of MTN Ghana Mr. Guido Sopiimeh, who unveiled the contestants, said while in the house the contestants “will be assigned to professional music production houses in Ghana who will support them in making their songs better.” The producers of the show will also rely on season judges Ofie Cudjoe, Zapp Mallet and Bessa Simon to help groom the contestants into world class artistes. “The judges will also support by grooming the contestants to becoming the great performers that the MTN Hitmaker show wants them to be,” Mr. Sopiimeh mentioned. According to the producers of the show there were over 2000 submission of demos across the country by wannabe musicians willing to take part in the season two of MTN Hitmaker. Mr. Sopiimeh told the gathering that “the demos received were subjected to rigorous scrutiny by our able panel of judges after which the best ones were invited to undergo an auditioning process.” The twelve contestants who were unveiled to the gathering by Mr. Sopiimeh and MC for the evening Bola Ray ARE Abigail Antwi, Albert Buabeng, Stephen Kim (Kofi Korea), Olevya Aba, Fiifi Sey Armah, Priziners (George Kwasi Sarpong aka Abraham and Christopher Boakye Yiadom aka Kojo Boakye), Jamilatu Mohammed, Miguel Oduro Daniels (Qwabyna), Nana Adobea, Hussein Musah, Koo Ntakara and Gilbert Bossu (Cano-Z). On their part judges for the season, who incidentally were the judges for the first season, were all happy for the choice they had made and were confident that the twelve finalists would not disappoint them when the reality show begins to air on television and viewers see the potential of the contestants. It is planned by the producers that the 13 week television series of the MTN Hitmaker 2 show would commence from the first week of August and would air on Metro TV, GTV, Skyy TV and Multi TV on Sundays at 8:30pm. The public can participate in the show by voting to keep their favourite contestants in the competition towards the weekly evictions. The MTN Hitmaker season two has a prize package of a recording and artiste management deal worth GH¢100, 000.00 for the winner and GH¢50, 000.00 for the first runner-up. The third and fourth-placed winners as well as all finalists will also receive some handsome prizes. MTN Hitmaker will also reward the sound engineer with the Best Beat on the show and weekly prizes for Best Performer, Best Appearance, Highest ‘Texters’ and more. Introduced last year, the show aims at identifying, grooming and supporting young aspiring artistes to record their own music and turning them into stars. The first season was a huge success and everyone saw the wonderful, transformed talents on television for several weeks before the final showdown at the Accra International Conference Centre where Shadrach Adjei alias Naterial beat Miriam, Chiki and Atimbilla to claim the first prize. Miriam placed second. Naterial and her have since recorded their debut albums titled Mamle and My Testimony respectively. The Hitmaker initiative is championed by MTN and supported by the MTN Ghana Foundation under the auspices of the Youth Empowerment Programme in partnership with the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA).