Nii Ayite Hammond, a member of the Board of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards has responded to claims that Black Sherif deserved the Album of the Year award in the 24th edition of the scheme more than King Promise who won with his ‘5 Star’ album. 

Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Twitter Spaces, Hammond acknowledged that Black Sherif had a good album (The Villain I Never Was) but King Promise’s ‘5 Star’ album also passed the litmus test. 

“It is true that ‘The Villain I Never Was’ ticks all the boxes, the same way King Promise’s album also ticks all the boxes. You realise that when you read the category definition, it doesn’t say hit song and quality of recording. It says ‘and/or’. So when you are assessing them, you assess both and you make a choice out of that assessment,” he said. 

The VGMA Board member also explained why the category definition for the Album of the Year changed from an album just having the highest number of hit songs to one possessing technical qualities.

“At a point in time in the music life of the country, we were doing more singles so the albums were kind of suffering. And so people who were coming out with albums and we realized that the definition that we had in the past which was three or more hit songs was becoming a challenge. So in the wisdom of the Board we needed to change that definition,” he further noted.

According to him, this criteria posed a challenge because they noticed that there were albums which by critical acclaim qualified for nomination but were not popular. 

“We also noticed that there were quality productions which we were overlooking just because we were looking at the popularity aspect so we needed to bring that one in such that people who also take their time to produce quality albums get featured,” he said on Joy Entertainment Unpacked. 

The Album of the Year of the Vodafone Ghana Music “is adjudged by the Academy and Board as the most outstanding compilation (either by the number of hit songs and or the quality of production) of an Album that was released during the year under review. It must have generated excitement during the year.”

The 24th Vodafone Ghana Music Awards which was held at the Grand Arena on May 6, 2023.