Nii Ayi Tagoe Dropped Guru From VGMA

Information reaching Nii Ogbamey Tetteh indicates that Joy FM presenter and DJ Nii Ayi Tagoe had schemed successfully to prevent hiplife artiste, Guru, of ‘Lapaz Toyota’ fame from making it on the nomination list of the 2012 Ghana Music Awards.

Nii Ayi Tagoe, a member of the award’s board, allegedly lobbied board members to drop Guru and his songs from the nomination list, although some of the board members had put ‘Lapaz Toyota’ under a couple of categories on the nomination list.

The popular ‘Lapaz Toyota’ song was on the lips of virtually all music lovers and also rocked at several shows but did not get a single nomination.

A source has disclosed that he has “evidence that Nii Ayi Tagoe is the one who personally asked that Guru’s song should be removed from the list.”

According to him, he overheard the DJ, the son of the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, telling the rest of the board that ‘Lapaz Toyota’ was released around October 2011, a date which was out of the board’s year under review.

“He specifically told the board that Guru released the song in October 2011, out of the calendar year, so it did not qualify him to be placed in any category,” the source revealed to Nii Ogbamey Tetteh.

Meanwhile, Nii Ayi Tagoe, who outlined the various reasons why Guru was dropped from the nomination on Gh-One’s ‘Pundit’ show (confirming what the paper’s source had hinted), said as to whether or not he asked for Guru’s track to be dropped, he was not ready to talk about it.

The source noted that some members on the boards whose names he would not mention, were willing to overlook that small error the ‘Lapaz Toyota’ hit maker seemed to have committed but  “Nii Ayi Tagoe insisted that he should be pulled of the list”.

Guru has openly expressed his displeasure towards Charter House and the VGMA board for leaving out his hit song in their nomination list.

Before he was appointed this year onto the board of the VGMA, Nii Ayi Tagoe was one of the very vocal critics of the music event.

According to the source, after receiving fat sitting allowances from the various board meetings, Nii Ayi Tagoe’s sense of criticism had suddenly gone in the other direction in terms of the nomination list.

“I remember how he used to bash some of the artistes that got nominated in the previous years but this year’s nomination, which is raising a lot of controversies, he is quickly defending them. He even used to bash the board,” he said.