Ghana’s Bisa Kdei sweeps 2016 MOGO Awards

Last year saw no clear dominance, even as Okyeame Kwame took the Artist of the Year award. This year it was singer Bisa Kdei who dominated the list of winners. He came into the award ceremony with the most nominations, having earned seven nods across several categories, including Artiste of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Song Writer and Best Performer. 

As a further tribute to his hard work over the past year, Bisa Kdei was nominated twice in the Best Songwriter of the Year category, with his songs ‘Mansa’ and ‘Brother Brother’ receiving separate nominations in the Best Song category. In the same category he received a nomination for the Obrafour song ‘Pimpinaa’, where he is a featured artist, bringing his number of nominations for the Best Song category to three, perhaps an unprecedented feat at the MOGO Awards.

At the end of the ceremony, he had picked up five awards for his seven nominations. All collected by his manager because the artist is out of the country. He showed up on twitter to announce his wins however, at one point noting that "And we had the songwriter of the year." 

Rapper Sarkodie, however, pipped Bisa Kdei to the Best Album award, as the rapper’s Mary won over Bisa Kdei’s 2014 album Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Kaywa won the Best Producer award and Amakye Dede took the award for Best Performer. Other winners include songstress Efya (Best Female Act) and Ohia Be Ye Ya (Best Band/Group).

The MOGO awards are modelled on the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards in the UK, which in recent years have been dominated by British-Ghanaian artist Fuse ODG.

The full list of nominees for the 2016 MOGO Awards is as follows, with the winners marked in bold.

• ‘Mansa’ –  Bisa Kdei
• ‘Concert Party’  – R2Bees
• ‘Minabopo’ – E.L
• ‘Telemo’ – Gasmilla
• ‘Brother Brother’ – Bisa Kdei
• ‘Mewu’ – Sarkodie
• ‘Pimpinaa’ – Obrafour ft Bisa
• VVIP – Skolom ft Sena Dagadu

• Bisa Kdei
• R2bees
• Sarkodie
• Obrafour
• Kofi B
• Gasmilla

• Bisa Kdei – ‘Mansa’
• Bisa Kdei – ‘Brother Brother’
• Akwaboah – ‘Mewu’
• Sarkodie – ‘Mary’

• Sarkodie
• Bisa K’dei
• Kwabena Kwabena
• Stonebwoy
• Amakye Dede

• R2bees
• Ohia Be Ye Ya
• Afro Harmony
• VVIP
• FOKN BOIS
• Patch Bay

• Kaywa
• Killbeatz
• Bisa K’dei
• Osei (Groove House)
• Appietus

• Bisa K’dei
• Stonebwoy
• Sarkodie
• EL
• Obrafour

• Becca
• Efya
• Mzvee
• Sena Dagadu

• Thanksgiving – Bisa K’dei
• Mary – Sarkodie

• Obrafour ft Bisa Kdei – ‘Pimpinaa’
• Sarkodie ft Akwaboa – ‘Mewu’
• Sarkodie ft Pat Thomas – ‘Bra’
• Okyeame Kwame ft Mzvee – ‘Small Small’
• Stonebwoy ft Mzvee – ‘Come Over’
• VVIP ft Sena Dagadu – ‘Skolom’