The South African Music Awards (SAMAs) organiser Nhlanhla Sibisi has owned up and taken the blame for the low-quality awards ceremony that was held in Sun City, North West last weekend.
Sibisi, who is also the CEO of Recording Industry of South Africa, was responding to the backlash received from artists and the public for the flopped event.
Several artists including Zakes Bantwini, DJ Maphorisa, Makhadzi and Lady Du took to social media to express their unhappiness at the way that the awards were conducted.
The heaviest criticism came from Zakes Bantwini who likened the event to a corruption scheme running behind stage curtains.
Sibisi told Sunday World that he takes the blame for the poorly organised event.
“We gave total power to the public to nominate the artist of the year. This was the biggest mistake and we regret it,” said Sibisi.
“We also allowed the public to vote for the artist of the year, this weakened our internal controls because the public vote took over and controlled the voting process. We also failed to engage with the artists, as a result most of them did not know how the judging process worked.
“We are therefore pleading with the public not to blame the artists because they followed all the terms and conditions and won. We are to blame, we are at fault and we will do better next time.”
He further stated that the financial challenges added to the poor quality of the awards.
“We also struggled to organise this event because we didn’t have enough money. Because of this, we had to change the venue. Initially we’d chosen Sun Arena but due to financial constraints, we had to move it to Sun City in North West,” said Sibisi.
He said his team would go back to the drawing board to rectify its mistakes.
“We have noted all the complaints and we are ticking each and every one of them. We are going back to the drawing board and we shall be reviewing the entire process, then we shall be making a public announcement.”
Irate Zakes Bantwini attacks the SAMAs
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