Once inside the AMVCA hall, I was systematically tossed around by a few black-clad hostesses. They drew my attention to my black tag; it wasn’t really created to give me the best seats in the house. I was finally led to a back enclave and settled my backside grudgingly. The vantage point wasn’t bad; I had a direct view of the stage. This year IK wasn’t hosting; Bovi was, alongside the beautiful Nomzamo Mbatha from South Africa.
Bovi in his typical halting half-joke, half-serious manner; reeled off some house keeping rules about coming upstage to collect awards with only the people directly associated with the said awards, not a gang of random ‘we are happy for you’ family and friends. He warned that speeches should be kept to a minimal, otherwise the ambitious speech giver would be cut off by an oversized bodyguard standing metres away from the microphone, who would bodily block the winner in question from view.
But as the show kicked off, everyone completely ignored Bovi’s light-hearted warning, as winner after winner came up with a babbling entourage to claim their award trophy. Speaking of trophies, Bovi subtly mocked Kunle Remi, who weeks before, probably after buying a new ring light, had come online to claim that AMVCA organizers were notorious for taking the award trophies back from the winners afterwards.
‘Kunle Remi, take note that every winner is going home with an award trophy’, Bovi said chuckling wickedly, and co-host Nomzamo chimed in just in time, ‘like they have always done at every other AMVCA award night.’
Nice jab but the delivery left us wondering how to react.
I will say it with my full chest, I miss IK’s hosting of the AMVCA. I know he has his many engaging attributes but quote me anywhere, Bovi is not AMVCA material. A few diss here and there was all the night offered, nothing remarkable or memorable. Even the Ying and Yang vibe they were going for fell flat on its face.
The time in-between awards, when ads were ongoing on live TV, was deathly quiet inside the hall with no one to engage the crowd; no DJ, no IK who would have ordinarily cracked us all up with his one-of-a-kind hilarious version of topical issues, unscripted.
AMVCA for next year, please give us IK or we boycott the awards!!
Too dramatic? Okay, moving on.
One of the only movies I never bothered to watch, ‘My Father’s Shadow’ was the big winner of the night, bagging Best Movie, Best Director, Best Writing (Movie), Best Sound Design and Best Score/Music.
If you ask me, I think best sound design should have gone to the series, ‘To Kill a Monkey’ but the fact that it was a series and not a movie must have impacted that decision.
The performance by Fave was top-notch; it was a first for me but trust me, she didn’t disappoint. Her routine was mesmerizing and kept you watching, and in turn listening to the lyrics of her hit song ‘intentions’; Good stuff. I missed BNXN’s opening performance (almost everyone did) while milling around the red carpet, but mid way into the show, the amazing Tiwa Savage came on and did her magic. As is the AMVCA custom, Fave, BNXN and Tiwa all came out at the end for a medley-type performance, but by some annoying timing mishap BNXN was off (he kicked started the medley performance), coming on stage after the music was already playing and I think this must have impacted his performance because he was distant, not engaging the crowd much.
As the night progressed, a few famous faces whizzed past me. AY was standing a few paces from me, seat-less, looking around frantically for a seat. A lady in a dress, completely made from golden balls and balloons walked past me, a few of her prop balloons already deflated. Uzor Arukwe my man, was four arm lengths away from me and I tried desperately to get his attention, but he was busy pretending to scroll through his phone, ignoring the general proceedings. But when his nomination for best supporting actor was mentioned, he glanced up briefly and then back to his attention consuming phone.
My final grouse was for the award for best actor; and even though Uzor Arukwe is my undisputed favourite actor of this millennium and the next, (let him try to deny that we are not friends because I have certified receipts) I think like hundreds of thousands of Nigerians with a functional brain, that the award for best actor should have easily gone to the amazing artistry of William Benson in the movie series, ‘To Kill a Monkey.’
The excuse would be they didn’t want to award ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and also ‘Best Actor’ to the same movie, even though they were comfortable enough in the female category, to give both awards to the same person, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman.
Well played AMVCA, well played; you see what I did there?
