Just My Opinion Entering the NAMAs, Please get it right guys!

IT is that time again. I am so sure I don’t have to remind our local artists – as I am certain every one of them has marked it down in their calendars already.

Well If you don’t know yet what I am on about, I am talking about the call for entries for the NaMa awards. and thus marks the start of the road towards NaMa 2013.I recently received an email from MTC inviting me to an information session which was aimed at sharing with the relevant stakeholders, matters relevant to the NaMas 2013.My first thought – that was fast! Is it that time of the year already? Second thought – great, now up until sometime in april (it they haven’t changed the date) MTC will be bombarding my inbox with news of the NaMas. My third thought and most important thought was, do artists and their managers even make an effort to attend these ‘information sessions’ because as the main stakeholders of the NaMas, they are the ones who need it the most.By need it, I mean they need to be there and hear first hand the rules and regulations of entering for the awards.On the one hand I feel it is very necessary to get them all in a room and explain to them whether or not they qualify to enter next year’s awards.But on the other hand I also feel, why bother?Since taking over from Sanlam as the main sponsor of the Namibia Musicawards MTC,withoutfail holds a fancy press conference – doing what MTC do best, which is spending money! Trying to explain to the artists the rules and regulations of entering the prestigious awards.Besides obviously putting the rules and regulations together with the terms and conditions on the application forms, they still make the extra effort of calling all those concerned together to explain the entry process. and every year, at the end of that said section everyone is happy and runs to fill in the forms, apply and wait a few months to hear it they have made it to the nominee list.Personally I don’t even know why MTC bothers themselves, because no matter how hard they try, no matter how many discussions, seminars, workshops and press conferences they organise to explain the rules to our artists, when the nominees are finally announced – trust me – there will always be those artists that did not pay attention. Who did not bother to read the rules. That will throw a fit, cry foul, boycott, withdraw and whatever else they do when they find out they did not make it.Which means MTC will have to spend more money organising another press conference to tell artists what they should already know. all because they didn’t go through the rules and just applied them any which way, and in the end did not make it.So to all the artists out there, it has been a long year and a lot of you have worked very hard, and many of you have even released albums just in time to qualify for the NaMas but I can imagine there are other criteria involved and I’m so sure that you thinking you had the best album of 2012, is not one of them!