I did not want Bebe Cool to win any award at the MTV Africa Music Awards in South Africa last weekend. Nobody in their right state of mind wanted him to. We all wanted him to walk out of the Durban International Convention Centre empty handed, which, gladly, he did.

Bebe Cool winning any award at the MAMAs would have meant having to evacuate the entire East African region of all Baturage just so that he can loudly announce his exploits.

Instead, my cards were on Jose Chameleone as he tussled it out with Nigeria’s D’Banj for the newly introduced MAMA Evolution award. This is a new category that seeks to honor established artists who have left an indelible mark on African and global music culture by taking African music to new frontiers around the world, pushing the boundaries of creativity, and generally shaping the contemporary African soundscape.  

Sadly, Chameleone too walked away empty-handed in a contest where the Nigerians swept 12 out of the 17 awards dished out that night.

This has since caused a lot of bitter debate from the Ugandan and East African music fraternity, who are still mourning their loss.

Others even suspect foul play in the Nigerians’ winning ways.

On the side of the artistes, many are wondering and others are actually baffled at the Nigerian music invasion.

This is where the services of a music pro like I come in handy. As a music pro, I know instinctively what makes Naija music tick.

Nigerian musicians have that desire and the push. They are go-getters and they are hard workers. They will search for success no matter what it takes. They will set their egos aside, and they’ll work as hard as they can to get what they’re looking for. They’ll not settle for less.

One artiste from the region who has learnt a thing or two from his Nigerian counterparts is Tanzania’s Diamond Platnumz.

Until 2012 when he performed at the Big Brother Africa House in South Africa, nobody really seemed to know him beyond Tanzania and Kenya.

Since that BBA performance, Platnumz has been working tirelessly at self branding, but most importantly, making sure to learn how other people are doing things.

He realized he needed to make more trips to South Africa so that continental media can talk about him.

He further realized that if people are winning due to doing collabos, he needed to find a way to do collabos of his own. After his collabo with Davido called Number One, everyone started noticing him. It was a beautiful way for East and West Africa to meet.

Do you notice how of late literally every Nigerian artiste is collaborating with Americans?

D’Banj has two collabos with Akon (Feeling the nigga, and Cucumber), while Davido recently paired with US rapper Meek Mill on Fans Mi, while P-Square feature Jermaine Jackson, brother to the late Michael Jackson on their hit, Zombie.

Ugandan singer Eddy Kenzo did not need to rely on luck or witchcraft to scoop his BET award earlier in the US.

All he needed was collaborations with lots of people: From Cameroon, Ivory Coast, to Gabon, he was all over.

I don’t care about copying what’s trending and finding a way to use it so that you can be able to get up there, and once there, you can then come back to your roots and show people what your roots are.

Of course, culture is great, but you can’t say you’re going to play traditional Rwandan music and expect Nigerians to dance to it. If they do, that will be a blessing. However, chances are that they won’t.