Multi-award winning South African household Gospel music choir, Joyous Celebration, have graciously decided to step aside from their Metro FM Music Award (MMA16) nomination to shine a light on SA’s young Gospel talent.
The move comes following the erroneous entry of Joyous Celebration into MMA16 by the artist’s record company, Sony Music Entertainment Africa, who has acknowledged that during the process of compiling and submitting artists from their roster into the Metro FM Awards, they mistakenly included Joyous Celebration as an entrant. The label has been supportive of Joyous Celebration’s philosophy of no longer entering awards to allow room for new talent to occupy the space, for several years now, but on this occasion human error resulted in Joyous Celebration unknowingly becoming a nominee until the announcement was made publicly.
“On behalf of Sony Music Entertainment I’d like to apologise to both Metro FM and Joyous Celebration as well as their fans. We have known about and supported Joyous’s philosophy in the past. A mistake was made, but we remain committed to being a good partner to both the artist and the broadcaster.” explains Sean Watson, Managing Director of Sony Music Entertainment Africa.
Joyous Celebration are extremely honoured by the nomination in the prestigious Best Urban Gospel category for MMA16. However, Joyous Celebration feel that the gospel genre would be better served by them passing the baton on to the new and exciting emerging Gospel acts out of South Africa currently.
“We are so grateful to Metro FM for the years of support not only to our choir but to the Gospel fraternity at large” says Lindelani Mkhize of Joyous Celebration.
Image: All4women
Zita Zimande is a sports news journalist from the University of Johannesburg. Besides being a sports fanatic, she loves to cook during her spare time.