South Africa's biggest night in music took place on Saturday at the Inkosi Luthuli Convention Centre (ICC) in Durban, and stars turned out in full force for the 15th Metro FM Music Awards (MMAs), dressed in all sorts of designer frocks and dapper suits. The lavish event which takes place annually to celebrate and award the best of South African artists in the music industry was broadcast live on SABC 1 and hosted by media queen, Bonang Matheba and Metro FM DJ, Mo Flava.
Unlike in previous years, we saw an improvement in sound, which was a great relief. All dialogue, speeches and performances were projected clearly and could be heard perfectly. However it was sad to notice that an improvement in one sector didn't necessarily mean a step forward for the whole show as other areas of the awards ceremony seem to have taken a step or two back. The lighting was poorly done. It might have looked amazing for the guests and audience who were watching in person at the venue, but it was certainly a catastrophe for viewers at home. The biggest trick with lighting a venue for an event that will be televized is that two elements have to be considered. It has to work for both the live audience as well as TV viewers, something that doesn't seem to have been in mind for the production of the MMAs. The whole convention center was covered in darkness and the audience could not even be seen on screen. When the first winner, Emtee, was announced, the cameras tracked him from the sitting area but we couldn't see the rapper until he got on stage. It was the same pattern for most of the winners. Certain parts of the stage were too dark and particular camera angles showed dark shots. So even performances could not be seen clearly. For instance, while AKA was in the better lighten part of the stage in his "Baddest" perfomance, his co-musicians were out on the poorly lighten side it was all thanks to God for the close ups that we could see who was who. The camera operators, however, were not fazed by this lighting issue as they showed a lot of ariel shots of the audience which was either completely dark or covered by a layer of a dark purple glaze, making me wonder what the point of continuously showing us this mess was.
Bonang and Mo Flava did a splendid job as hosts of the show (they might have even been the best part of the entire production). The were certainly the one thing that Metro FM got absolutely right for the night. Their vast experience as event MCs was reflected and I loved the chemistry they shared on stage. They were thoroughly professional and threw in a bit of fun jabs here and there (definitely nothing to the level of Trevor Noah or Kat Williams, but good enough for two non-comics). As usual and in true fashionista fashion (excuse the double wording there. I couldn't resist) Queen B, strutted out in multiple designer ensembles through out the show which all looked absolutely amazing. Her co-host didn't lack behind either, as Mo seemed to have brought in an entire closet of his own too. He looked all sorts of dapper, although I wasn't too sure about his first suit which rather made him look like a walking MTN billboard. I did feel as though we didn't see them enough on stage and the voice over presenters were used just a little too much that they should have. It would have been nice to see more of them.
For a rainbow nation, I couldn't stop asking myself why the awards had gotten an obviously English speaking person to do their voice-overs, when he had to pronounce numerous vernacular names. They could have easily had an African language speaker who was more familiar with the all the nominees' names, both western and african. It was disheartening to constantly hear the names being mispronounced over and over again. Right from the start, Bonang was introduced as a Mathibe instead of Matheba, and it got worse for the rest of the nominees throughout the show. The selection of presenters for the awards was not too shabby except for a few like Generations' Namhla and Skeem Saam's Ayanda who kept choking and stumbling over their script (totally had me on my knees praying that they don't pull a Steve Harvey on us). Minister Fikile Mbalula and the Durban mayor also read their scripts on cue cards instead of the teleprompter, which was very distracting and looked tacky. Thank God that Sthandwa lady only had to show up twice because her presenting skills were rather questionable, and there was a delay every time they had to turn transmission to her, another broadcasting disaster by the SABC.
Lerato Kganyako was great as the social hub presenter, though I wouldn't say the same for her co-presenter, Trevor Gumbi. If he wasn't throwing in totally unfunny jokes, he was swaying interviews into absolutely irrelevant discussions. The two had no chemistry at all. At some point they were talking over each other and it all seemed like a competition instead of the cooperative activity that it was meant to be. Towards the end, Trevor seemed annoyed at Lerato for not letting him share in the spotlight, which Lerato did seem to be hogging. It was all just too embarrassing and painful to watch really.
With all been said, a huge congratulations to all the winners of the 2016 Metro FM Awards and for a complete list of winners visit the Metro FM website.
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