Why the 17th Headies Awards Fell Short—and What Must Change

Asking whether The Headies will do better next time means that even though there is a lot to knock from the last edition (some of which I will be getting into later), there is still a lot of good that can be built upon.

Created in 2006 through Hip Hop World magazine (now HipTV) owned by entertainment entrepreneur Ayo Animashaun, The Headies (or Hip-Hop World Awards as it then was), had its first edition in Lagos on March 10, 2006. It was hosted by singer Dare Art Alade under the slogan “the revolution is here,” at the Muson Centre.

The Headies, as you might have guessed by now, is a music awards show. It is focused primarily on rewarding musical achievement in Nigeria. However, there are some regional categories recognizing musical talent from around Africa. You have the Best West African Artiste, East African Artiste and so on. There is also the International Artiste of the Year category. I cannot say I understand the logic behind some of these categories though. But that is beside the point.

In any case, there is always going to be some dissatisfaction or disgruntlement over one category or the other. If it is not over the title of the category itself, it is going to be over the winner of a certain category. All of which is not necessarily bad for an awards show, especially in this social media or influencer era. At the very least, debates and controversies would generate some buzz.

Regardless, the fact remains that there are many highly anticipated categories at The Headies, especially those that come with attractive prizes like The Next Rated which comes with a brand-new car. Rapper Odumodublvck, this year’s winner of the next rated category, will receive a 2022 Bentley Bentayga valued at three hundred million Nigerian naira, about $200, 000 USD. The Headies does pull some weight. It packs sufficient glitz and glamour, and some refer to it as Nigeria or Africa’s Grammys.

A few days before this year’s main event on April 23 &-24, 2025, The Headies organized its first creative summit at the John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture & History. Supported by organizations like Johnnie Walker and the US Consulate in Lagos, the creative summit was all about the business of music, and how musicians can thrive on the global stage. Then we came back to earth as we took all these expectations to this year’s Headies, the 17^th edition, which took place on Sunday April 27 in Lagos.

Returning to Lagos after a break which saw the last two editions hold in Atlanta, USA, this year’s edition was dubbed “Back to base” with slogans like “We are coming home.” Mind you, the awards show was not in my consciousness or on my radar even. Somehow, I had managed to miss whatever publicity there had been. Still, when I ran into The Headies being live streamed online on that Sunday (April 27, 2025), I could not believe my luck.

I quickly settled down to watch even though I kept checking different social media sites to be sure the event was live. It was somewhere around 9 or 10 pm in my Eastern Time zone, which meant it was around 2 or 3 am in Lagos, Nigeria. I could not imagine guests still being there from who-knows-what-time. And, even with me joining late, it was still a long frustrating night.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one who was frustrated. From Darling Lyonga’s “Why The Headies are a total mess,” to DayGenius’ “What a mess: The Headies 2025 event review,”   to Olubukola Ozone’s “My 10-point review of The Headies Awards 2025,” it was lamentations galore. By myself, I bored my daughter Akudo with whom I watched the awards, or rather we bored ourselves silly going over all the things that went wrong, it was more like the ‘shake-my-head,’ ‘how-could-they-have-gotten-it-so-wrong’ type of wonderment. This was the 17^th edition of The Headies!

Months later and, hopefully, with cooler heads and tempers, we can take another look at some of what took some shine and excitement from The Headies 2025 and plead for a better edition next time.

The biggest issue was the lack of time consciousness. There was a lag between segments, and the stage was left empty for long stretches. As a result, the show felt like a drag. Camera work was poor, and the hall had this inexplicable blue glaze. If you had not caught the celebrities on the red carpet, you would never be able to see them clearly due to the poor lighting and camera work. There was also a certain awkwardness and award presenters going off script (?) that made it look like there were no rehearsals.

Kunle Afolayan’s intervention and the Nigerian factor

Speaking of award presenters going off script (if there was a script, that is), filmmaker Kunle Afolayan, while presenting the Best Music Video won by director Pink for Chike’s “Egwu,” said words to the effect of “Pikin good, pikin no good, na still pesin pikin” (A child, whether good or bad, is still someone’s child). At that time of the night or morning, so many guests had gone home, and the remaining guests were just hanging on either dreading the unsafe drive home or only plain bugged out by the drag of The Headies.

Their less than enthusiastic response when he came on stage was to be expected. Afolayan was not in any doubt that the event had become a drag which is why he must have thought it was best to lay on some emotional guilt by saying what he said. But even in his analogy of ‘pesin pikin,’ how would the pikin ever improve if people, those who could constructively correct said pikin, continue to give it a pass?

This is the crux of the Nigerian factor. Whether because of tribe, religion, or cronyism, or even gender, so much is excused away, and people are let off the hook easily and accountability is not encouraged.

Hosting or (G)hosting? The hosting confusion

If you stayed only for the beginning of the show, it would have been clear that Nancy Isime was the solo host of this year’s Headies. She is no stranger to hosting the show as she co-hosted The Headies with Reminisce in 2019 and with Bovi in 2020. So, this is not about her hosting even though there are parts that flew over my head. But then again, I may not be the target audience.

Still, I would like to think Isime followed whatever the plan was. The fact remains that from a certain point in the show, there did not appear to be a host. Announcements were voiced over from the backstage or from the general surrounding environment as to what the next segment was. I suspect that because the show stretched so much, having a solo presenter, as exciting as it must have been on paper, would stretch even the best professional. Perhaps having multiple talented presenter and comedians to fill in could have helped.

Will The Headies do better next time?

This is the question to ponder on. It does not matter whether some of the concerns raised by me, and others are serious or not. In these parts, calling critics ‘bad belle’ or disgruntled is par for the course. Whether you are team “Pikin good, pikin no good, na still pesin pikin,” or not, with seventeen editions under The Headies’ belt, there are basic things expected from ‘Africa’s Grammys.’  And if the organizers need some inspiration, they can always look to the AMVCAs (Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards), especially for the live streaming part.

This year, it just so happened that the AMVCAs held on May 10, 2025, in Lagos, barely two weeks after The Headies. So, it was hard not to compare and contrast. The AMVCAs run a very tight professional ship, and the live streaming usually runs accordingly.

Anyhow, for an awards show that began with the slogan ‘the revolution is here,’ after almost two decades, The Headies needs to keep reminding itself about the significance of the slogan. For now, it seems The Headies might not be living up to its intent.