The gospel music fraternity is not relenting on projecting its members as they wax stronger in pushing gospel artistes to win the ultimate award at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.

Nii Noi, a gospel music executive and a member of Table of Men, a gospel advocacy group that promotes gospel music, has said in a recent interview with Joy FM’s Kwame Dadzie that the gospel people will still throw their weight behind some artistes to win the overall Artiste of the Year award at the 2024 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.

While answering a question by media executive Francis Doku on Showbiz A-Z about plans by the Table of Men for this year's VGMA Artiste of the Year slot, Nii noted that the gospel artistes did so well in 2023 and stand a chance of annexing the topmost prize. 

“I think you would agree with me that it doesn’t look bad, it looks positive especially when you have a song like Nacee’s Aseda and even Piesie herself with the song Mo. Nacee’s Aseda had great impact and even his concert he did was more creative; adding the drama to music. It was the first time we saw that in the gospel space. We can say that it brought a certain shift in the space. I know some people having discussions to follow suit,” he said. 

He, therefore, indicated that the exceptional performances by Piesie Esther and Nacee in the year under review place them as the two choices for their Artiste of the Year slot this year.

“So I think that we are in that space and this time I think that we have two people to put forward and I think it is something great that we should look out for when conversations on the awards start,” he added.

For the first time in the history of Ghana's music industry, a gospel artiste, Joe Mettle won the topmost prize at the VGMA in 2017 through the great campaign staged by gospel industry folks to solicit votes for him. 

The gesture was passed on to Diana Hamilton in 2021 when she also won the same slot. The award, however, eluded the gospel people in 2023 although they seriously campaigned and lobbied the music fraternity to vote for Piesie Esther to win. 

While some consider the move by the Table of Men as one that was meant to help in pushing God’s work, other thought they were overly desperate for awards which are not the core tenets of the gospel music ministry. 

Other people in the gospel industry also have a problem with the Table of Men choosing their favourite artistes to project for the Artiste of the Year award.

In the meantime, the VGMA Board is yet to announce the nomination application for interested musicians for the 2024 awards.