Wow, whoever thought that we’d still be talking about the SAMAs almost a week later. If it’s not Babes and Mampintsha’s apologies, it’s Zahara not accepting Somizi’s apology.
And if it’s not the back and forth apologies it’s South Africans who are still busy killing us with laughter when it comes to their #MampintshaChallenge videos.
Whilst everyone is weighing in on why Babes Wodumo should’ve won a SAMA, musicians like Zakes Bantwini feel that winning or losing an award is not the be-all and end-all of your career as an artist.
Zakes this morning shared how he never won a South African Music Award back in 2011 despite the fact that he was nominated for five awards.
Zakes shared how his singles in that year were all hits but were not worthy of winning a SAMA.
“This was SAMA17 in 2011, I was the most nominated artist with five nominations but didn’t win even one that evening. So Love, Light and Music album which has songs like Clap your hands, Wasting my time, Nomathemba, Bum Bum and Juju amongst other songs wasn’t good enough for SAMA17.”
But Zakes did not throw his toys out of the pram after losing, instead, he went back to the drawing board and released more music.
“I remember saying to myself it’s all good cause I never made this album for these awards and I’m not entitled to any of them….
Whilst most fans complained on Zakes behalf, he knew that the dust would eventually settle and that people would move onto the next artist, and they did.
During that time, Zakes focused more on his fans and releasing more music projects and from then on we just saw the man’s musical archives grown from strength to strength.
“So I used my fans to push me to do more music and I recorded my DVD in Soweto 2012 and gave you Upfront with Zakes Bantwini live album which had Karolina, 2013 went back to the studio and did My Music Bible which had Ghetto and She stole my heart. 2014 I joined Sony after my second graduation at Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) as Head of A&R and made a success of many artists albums such as iFani, AKA’s Levels album, KO’s Dust Republic album, Zonke, Ralf Gum, Kaylow to mention just a few.”
Zakes emphasizes that he did all of this without winning a SAMA.
“So the moral of the story is awards don’t make you but hard work and your fans support do. Look at me I’m living proof that you can have a beautiful career without a SAMA.”
Preach Zakes!
Main Image Credit: Instagram/@ZakesBantwini
