And The Award For The WORST Awards Event Of The Year Goes To…..Pulse Music Video Awards. Oops.

If you’re a magazine that has existed for like a gazillion years,a magazine that we practically grew up reading through our tumultuous teenage years,a magazine that’s backed and rolled out by a publishing giant,in fact,the oldest newspaper in the land,you’re honestly expected to have some clout,manage to pull a show,put out some remarkably historic show and do things as epic as epicness itself. But that’s not always the case. If we have to start with last night.

Friday night’s PULSE AWARDS,confusedly christened PMVAs,was a tragi-comedy.

There were so many wrong things with the Awards Show it ended up looking like a botched ISIS invasion.

To start the tragedy off,it was,or appeared to have been like an Invites-Only affair. Trouble is,none of the esteemed invites cared to show up. And then everything,and I mean, everything went downhill from there. Things got so messy,so absolutely calamitous it started looking like a hurried cult recruitment ceremony.

And to make matters worse,the event was beamed LIVE on TV. So all that lack of success was witnessed by millions of hapless viewers nationwide. Most of whom had a field day gleefully roasting the ceremony on our greatest avenue of angst ; Twitter.

From the word go,nothing seemed to go right. 98% of the nominees didn’t even show up. Leave alone climb atop the troubled stage to collect their ‘Award’.

According to sources,only Kristoff and ummm who else? I forget,showed up. Jaguar came too. And left early. You don’t keep a busy man with State House connections stuck in your quandary for long.

Ok,to be fair,a few other celebrities did actually show up. Trouble is, they’re so unpopular we can’t even remember who they were anymore.

The hosts for the night was Shaffie Weru and Mwalimu Rachel. And within the first 30 minutes of the shambles,Twitter had already concluded that Shaffie was drunk as fuck. Or high as a kite… Whichever comes first.

As for Mwalimu Rachel,well,it was roundly decided that she should stick to radio. You cannot have a laughter that annoying and still inflict further pain on people by letting them see you. Laughing. Disastrous.

Mercy Masika,the greatest Gospel artist of all time,did actually show up. And put on a killer show performing the one song that ruled the airwaves throughout 2015. If only she’d start going out more and wearing less… Wait what!!?? Haha.

Papa Dennis,the gospel musical project,performed too. And then went back to the irrelevance he’s accustomed to. And everyone was happy.

Jamal Gaddafi, that television terrorist,did show up too. Bringing along his absolute lack of TV skill into the show too. And heavily disturbing Twitter. Only thing he excelled in,or ever excels in,is fashion. He’d look so much better if he never ever talked. But thank God,he succeeded spectacularly in muddling up the already botched show even further.

The show itself was held at the classy cinema hall IMAX… But at some point,the stage looked like a High School Drama Festival stage… And the lighting was as horrendous as the guy who decided to refuse to supply the event with more than one microphone. Or at least two.

Vera Sidika,who had sustained a vigorous campaign on Social Media asking her fans,or whatever to call those people how follow her,to vote for her as the Video Vixen of the year,didn’t even bother showing up. But on a Friday night,Sidika’s bedroom must have had more action than IMAX itself.

Owago Nyiro was there. But isn’t he always everywhere? I bet he’s coming for your nephew’s baptism later today.

Kenzo showed up too but just like I told you earlier,nobody showed up.

The red carpet wasn’t any better. It looked like the launch of a Farmer’s Sacco. Or a County Youth Initiative.

Bahati won Male Artist of the Year. Or something like that. And nobody was surprised. Or amused.

At this rate,they’re soon going to give him the Best New Female Artist Award and nobody will even notice. Our national entertainment is made up of Bahati and Kaka Sungura anyway.

Also,there was a huge outcry on Twitter from disgruntled fans who felt like it was wrong to NOT make the event public for all thus not just succeeding to fill up the empty hall but also making regular fans attend the show and get to meet their beloved celebrities all of whom were absent anyway.

From beginning to end,the show was a train wreck. Amy Winehouse (RIP) would have pulled a better show even in the mid of her drunken stupor.

Before the show was even half way,discontented Kenyans on Twitter started wondering why they were even watching the show in the first place. I saw someone say she’d rather go back to scrubbing her kitchen floor than watch a sloshed Shaffie goof it up on stage. And I supported her.

Even Miss Mandi,the Countess Of Bitchiness,didn’t miss the opportunity to throw shade. And just like her punches,she went hard.

Smitta Smitten,The Standard’s genius writer and acclaimed poet was there too. He’s Pulse’s premier writer anyway. Everything would have turned out great had he not decided to totter onto the stage and turn the whole event into some poetry symposium.

 

 

Blunders aside,many Awards were won-and lost-last night.

Hart The Band won Best Group Video,Sauti Sol scooped the Best Collaboration,Vera Sidika,the conspicuous absentee won Best Video Vixen,Avril won Best Female Video for a video that was released 16 minutes ago,Rabbit won Best Cinematography and everyone else won everything else.

Kagwe Mungai,the number one lady killer also did throw some killer show. But not a very killer song. You know you’re doing it wrong when you jump on a dying social media catchphrase and quickly morph it into a song. Fail.

Overall,PMVA is a ceremony that didn’t have to happen. And if it did, didn’t have to go that bad. And end up as such an eyesore.

Congrats to the winners though. 95% of them weren’t a surprise. We’re sort of used to them winning.

May the glaring blunders of the inaugural PMVA teach us many lessons. Many many lessons.

That was a night. And a half. Phew.