As the 2016 Headies went down at the Eko Convention Centre yesterday night, several stars were conspicuously missing.
Among the most notable were YBNL boss Olamide and his whole crew; Don Jazzy and his entire Mavins team; Chocolate City and its roster of stars; Davido, who had a show only the previous day at Oriental Hotel; Tekno, P-Square, Yemi Alade, Ill Bliss, Waje, Omawumi, Cynthia Morgan, Reminisce and several others.
It came as a shock to many fans who were eager to catch a glimpse of their favourite artistes, but to their dismay they didn’t bother to show up.
Olamide, who won two awards on the night, was not there to pick them up, nor was anybody from his YBNL label. Even Lil Kesh, on whose behalf he got into a Twitter spat during the last edition of the Headies, did not show up. There hasn’t been any explanation from his camp as to why they snubbed the awards ceremony this morning.
In the same vein, Don Jazzy was inexplicably absent alongside the members of his Mavin Records label: Tiwa Savage, Dr Sid, Reekado Banks, Korede Bello, D’Prince and Di’ja.
Fans had been curious to see what the return of Don Jazzy to the Headies would look like, having left the stage in somewhat controversial circumstances that trailed his subtle diss of Olamide last year.
However, their social feeds showed that the team was in Abidjan for a Tiwa Savage concert. But Reekado was said to be recuperating from his Thank You Concert at African Shrine the previous day.
Tekno’s absence was to be expected though, as the Headies had withdrawn his nomination for the Next Rated Category. The ‘Pana’ singer was accused of not adhering to the requirements of being a nominee. On his part, he had dismissed the category as being inferior to him.
Yemi Alade is in Lagos, but was not seen at the Headies; neither were crowd favourites – Vector and Reminisce.
Rapper Ill Bliss, who won two awards on the night, did not make it there.
Bez, who won the award for Best Alternative Song, was curiously absent.
Even last year’s biggest winner Timi Dakolo did not honour the Headies organization with his presence.
As a matter a fact, most of the nominees were not present in the hall to the disappointment of their fans.
It is not clear if it was a deliberate slight on the organizers, or like AY said, all the artistes are booked and are overwhelmed by ‘December work’.
Nevertheless, it makes for a lot of wonderment how these stars, who have all at one time or the other been part of the Headies, all managed to stay away from the 2016 edition at the same time.
