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Though gospel artistes have managed to get as many nominations as their secular colleagues over the years, they have still not been able to clinch the topmost award at the Ghana Music Awards since its inception some 17 years ago.
It nearly fell to Kwaku Gyasi in 2007 but he was upstaged by King Ayisoba with his hugely popular ‘I Want To See My Father’ song.
In 2008, Ohemaa Mercy was tipped to walk away with the flagship award but Kwaw Kese denied her the title.
This year, the mantle has fallen on Joe Mettle to break the jinx with two of his colleagues—Nacee and Sonnie Badu calling on members of the gospel fraternity to rally behind him to wrestle the title from the other competitors.
Joe Mettle is contending for the Artist of the Year Award with MzVee, Medikal, Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, E. L.
Gospel musician and producer, Nacee who has 10 nominations (the highest) in this year’s VGMA told Showbiz his greatest joy in 2017 will be to see Joe Mettle win the Artist of the Year award.
“Honestly, I believe Joe Mettle deserves the Artiste of the Year more than the rest of the nominees. That is not to say MzVee, Medikal, Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, E. L. are not good but he stands tall among them.
“People’s attention are always on the secular musicians but Joe Mettle was the busiest artiste last year. I didn’t expect him to be on certain shows last year but he was there and he shined all the time,” Nacee added.
“It wouldn’t take anything from Ghanaians to vote for Joe Mettle to set a record as the first gospel artiste to win the Artiste of the Year. Gospel musicians have been sidelined for far too long and I believe we will break the jinx this year,” he said.
The UK-based Sonnie Badu lent his support to Joe Mettle an interview with Hitz FM’s KMJ last weekend. He called on other gospel artistes to support the Owawani singer to make history.
“Joe Mettle is one of the best musicians I have come across. There’s the need to support him to win this award. Besides, no gospel musician has ever won in that category so it would be great for him to win it. Winning it will bring honour to all gospel musicians”, he noted.
Joe Mettle has also been nominated in the Gospel Artiste of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Best Male Vocalist of the Year categories at the VGMA which comes off on April 8 at the Accra International Conference Centre.
