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UPDATED: Nominees for 2009 Ghana Music Awards

Kwaw Kese Abodam The highly anticipated 2008 edition of the Ghana Music Awards came off on Friday night (April 25). It was organized by CharterHouse Productions and sponsored by MTN. It featured performances from many Ghanaian artistes as well as Kenya's Nameless, Nigeria's P-Square and America's Ja Rule (who has been making a lot of trips to African countries recently).

The big winner on the night was the man who undoubtedly had the biggest impact on Ghanaian music in the calendar of 2007 - Kwaw Kese. Let me hear you say, "ABODAM!". Fa wo nsa bo w'adwen mu (use your hand to hit your brain). Kwaw Kese won the coveted artiste of the year award and 4 others.

The biggest prize may have been the Song of the year award which was picked up by Pastor Lenny Akpadie for his 'Most High God' song. It still is the top song in Ghana, even though we are well into 2008. Ohenmaa Mercy was tipped to win top song of the year but she came away with the album of the year instead. She also won the gospel album and artiste of the year.

Becca also had a hugely popular year in 2007 and landed a huge movie role alongside Camerounian star, Samuel Eto'o Fils. She won the record of the year award for her song, Sugar. She lost out the discovery of the year award to 5Five, who also won the pop song of the year for African Girls. Another strong candidate for discovery of the year, Irene and Jane, ended up winning the female vocal performance of the year.

Shasha Marley came back onto the Ghanaian music scene with a bang through his 'Lost and Found' album. He also found a couple of awards, winning the male vocal performance of the year as well as reggae song of the year for Maata Family

Ofori Amponsah is a mainstay in Ghanaian award ceremonies now based on his popularity and airplay. He took the highlife artiste of the year award on the back of his hit, Odwo. The highlife album of the year award went to Adane Best

Kwaw Kese is thought of as the only remaining hiplife artiste by some people so it is not really surprising he swept the hiplife categories - song (Odiem), artiste, and album. I don't think he deserved all but Kwaw Kese is enjoying a lot of love these days.

Lenny Akpadie won the gospel song of the year for Most High God while Ohenmaa Mercy took home prizes for gospel artiste and album of the year. Just when I was wondering what happened to Cee who took the music scene by storm, the judges didn't leave her out, crowning her collaboration with Isaac Showboy and Great Ampong as the best collaboration for Awurade Asem

I guess either P-Square or Nameless had to win for African artiste of the year for showing up. Nameless is so 2006 so I guess the 'Do me boys won this one.

Some awards were given out before the big night. A meritorious award was given to evergreen Kwabena Yamoah for his classic, 'Serwaa Akoto'. The best lyricist award went to Chemphe for his track, Why you dey treat am bad?, a song about domestic violence. Okele Boni, a cultural group from the Eastern Region, won the best traditional musiciand while Osei Tutu, a trumpeter, won the instrumentalist of the year award. I guess the Appietuses, Jay Qs, KSNs, Morris Babyfaces were left out this year. Nacy is the new kid on the block, picked the prize for best sound engineer.

There was a surprise in the record label category. It's tough to define record labels in the Ghanaian music scene, Mad Time Entertainment doesn't exactly produce many musicians but it won the record label of the year award. It is owned by the mad man himself, Kwaw Kese. Abodam means 'madness'. Stip Productions won the best video award for directing Kwaw's video - 'Woreye wo a, wose mmaa pe wo'.

Check out how I felt the awards would go when the nominations came out earlier.