Thursday, 14th December was another night of showing off Uganda’s hip-hop prowess from several musicians. The night was capped off with the legendary Navio, one of Uganda’s finest hip-hop artistes, and Kenyan rapper Bamboo. The MTN Sponsored Hip-Hop Awards were aimed at recognizing Uganda’s hip-hop musicians that had some of the best music in 2017.
The competition among the closely linked musicians was high, but there are always the best. Prycee Teeba and Fasie took home the best Male and Female rapper of the year respectively, after a good year of popular songs. Both Facie and Prycee Teeba collaborated on a song “House Arrest”.
According to Tribe UG, the organizers of the awards, the collaboration produced something incredible. The song of the year was won by Bust a shot. The song, which is popular in Ugandan nightclubs and several mixtapes, features The Mith and Natty Neithan.
The collaboration of the year was won by Vuqa Cipher, a song that features Keko, BigTril, Natty Neithan, The Mith, Nellysande, Ruyonga, Peter Miles and Timothy Code. Their eight minute song, had the highest number of musicians collaborating on a single song.
What would be an awards night without Atlas Da African winning an award? Well, he did by picking up the Video of the Year for his song Rather Be With You. Navio also featured in the awards by taking home The Rap Fusion of the Year award. The Tumunonye song was able to fuse traditional Luganda beats with Navio’s rap prowess, something he has done for now two years in a row.
MTN Uganda for the second year in a row sponsored the event and spiced it up by recognizing some of the upcoming hip-hop artistes. Known as The MTN Cipher, rappers looking to break into the industry would post videos of themselves rapping by including MyPakaPaka in their songs. These were posted on the MTN Facebook Page, letting people vote on the best rap.
At stake for the winner was Shs1m, coupled with an audio and video recording contract. Lil-Rich, took the overall award and while receiving the dummy cheque from MTN CMO, Olivier Prentout. Lil-Rich narrated rather emotionally of how he lost two brother in one year. This emotion is expressed in his song. MTN also recognized Ghetto Upgrade, the runner up, with Shs500,000.
