The PRO of Charterhouse, organisers of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards has opened up on why Dancehall artiste, Shatta Wale, was left out of the nominations for the 23rd edition.

According to Robert Klah, the 'Melissa' hitmaker did not show interest in joining the scheme despite the lifting of the ban placed on him and Stonebwoy in 2019.

Speaking on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, he said that “The scheme is in such a way that you need to be able to show interest, to be a part of the scheme, once you show interest we will work with you.”

Mr Klah stated that the interest is either in the form of filing for nomination or giving consent to the organisers to have your music nominated.

This comes after Ghanaians began questioning the absence of Shatta Wale from the 23rd edition of VGMA despite the inclusion of Stonebwoy.

Stonebwoy made his comeback appearing in the Reggae/Dancehall Song of the Year category.

Two of his hit songs were nominated for the category – ‘1Gad’ and ‘Greedy Men’. He is going against KiDi (Touch It), Samini (Picture), Larusso (New Gen) and Epixode (Odeshie).

Stonebwoy has also been nominated for the Reggae/Dancehall Artiste of the Year award.

He is up against the 2021 winner, Epixode, Samini and Larusso.

Explaining how the ‘One Gad’ hitmaker ended up on the nominations list, Mr Klah said “so Stonebwoy showed interest. I don't want to go into the details of how it happened.”

“But, the most important thing is that we established that there is a clear interest which is translated as consent given which is the reason why we were able to put him on the scheme.”