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Flashes of pulsating performances, deserved awards, nothing extraordinary on the night

Performances for most artists were rather average, clearly showing there's work to be done in that department.

Wizkid wins Artiste of the Year at Soundcity MVP Awards 2016

The show kicked off with DJ Neptune, powering away with the monster tunes vis-a-vis hypeman and Cool FM OAP Do2dtun keeping things interesting and lively as the DJ mixed.

Couple of minutes later, the surprise first act Ycee took to the stage performing his  'Alhaji', and was soon replaced by fast rising singer Niniola who definitely had the crowd mesmerized with her song 'Ibadi', her sex appeal oozing all over the stage, not taking away her stage craft as she held her own right with her performance.

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Enter Mavin singer Reekado Banks with his 'Problem' disturbing the peace, after which he mellowed things down a bit with 'Oluwa ni'. A decent outing in all for the singer.

The beauty about these performances was in the way they were happening back to back, credit be given to the DJ for switching things up to the next song, given us an idea of who was coming up next.

Humblesmith followed suit after Reekado Banks pulling the audience considerably with his hit song 'Osinachi', making good use of the stage and popularity of the song.

Smith makes way for Koker the promising Chocolate City act as he commands the crowd's attention with his street-hop street-coined anthem 'Kolewerk'.

Comic relief then permeates with official host of the night, Basket Mouth.

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Some of the winners on the night such as Yemi Alade (Best Female Artist)South African revered rapper Cassper Nyovest (Best Hip hop Artist) and Kiss Daniel (Best Pop Artist of the Year) were not in sight to pick up their respective awards.

The absenteeism quickly begins to remind the audience of the earlier held award The Headies which recorded a lot of boycotting for reasons best known to the artists.

Tekno who missed out big at the Headies was eligible for this one organised by Soundcity and he didn't fail to come out thankfully and receive his awards - and interestingly so received the most number of awards, three on the night, including Listener's Choice, Digital Artiste of the Year and Song of the Year - a hat trick you could say.

Ace rapper and award winning Falz the bahd guy on the night  then resumes the performance sessions, but noticeably and rather surprisingly, the crowd didn't seem to move and vibe much to Falz and his choreography dancers' efforts. The situation looked a shadow of the reception he got when he performed at virtually every other show in December.

Why the audience didn't groove as had been the norm in the past few weeks with Falz's performances leaves me guessing - Were they gassed out or exhausted already from the long stretching hours they were made to stand for just to see their favourite artistes perform, or perhaps they had seen enough of him already for the year as it were?

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If I could describe the reception of Falz's performance as distasteful or lukewarm, then I may be compelled to describe Mr Eazi's performance and the reception he got from the surrounding crowd as pathetic. As to whom the fault lies with could be attributed to all parties including the DJ, Eazi and the apathetic crowd.

The 'Skin tight' singer(MVP Best New Artist) had quite an arsenal of other upbeat songs that may perhaps have lifted the crowd's spirit, but then again, he probably was restricted to perform two songs by the organizers. Nevertheless, Eazi needs to work on his performance on stage, would be a damn shame if he can't put some life into those awesome songs he spins out in the recording studio. There is definitely room for improvement.

Adekunle Gold comes through with his charming persona, as he performs the beautiful number 'My life' and then 'Pick up'. For his own tempo of song, I'd say he did pretty well carrying the fans along.

Gospel reggae and dancehall crooner Patoranking makes way to the stage, lighting it up with 'Make am', 'Alubarika' and 'No kissing baby'. The singer gave a fair account with his performance.

The songbird of Xtreme Music Simi proceeds with the next performance as she performs 'Thief', and 'Foreign' off the ''Chemistry'' EP with Falz (which the audience were clearly not familiar with) as well as 'Open and close'. The crowd just watched on with little to no cheering as she performed all three songs.

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The award-winning singer Tekno then follows up her performance starting off with 'Diana' and then 'Pana', which surprisingly didn't receive the anticipated energy I was expecting from the fans. Once again, I couldn't really fathom exactly why, just as the case of Falz.

Lil Kesh rocks the stage with his fire songs 'Efejoku', 'Cause trouble' and more, thrilling fans to a great extent.

Chocolate City singer Victoria Kimani oozing sexiness from head to toe peformed her old and new songs but probably scored more with her sex appeal than her performance on the night.

Vanessa Mdee, the VJ and singer from Tanzania also did not resonate so much with the crowd.

Olamide just like his commanding performance at his recently concluded OLIC 3 concert, was unarguably the most cheered and loved performer on the night, as he took the fans back to back with his array of popular hit songs, 'Shakiti bobo', 'Turn up', 'Owo blow' and much more, getting the fans singing along to the lyrics of the songs as the DJ turned down the record.

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It was a moment of overwhelming love shown Olamide which he could not hide himself and just bowed down, taking it all in and showing appreciation to the fans.

Also, with regards to the short-timed performances, which left some people in the audience disappointed, it would have to be attributed to the time-consciousness organizers have factored into it all, not wanting to make the show a drag. Credit should be given them for that. Moreover, if the performances were above par, folks may not have taken mind much if they were shortly executed.

All in all, other than the flashes of pulsating performances from the likes of Olamide, Patoranking and Lil kesh, energetic hypes from Dotun, intermittent thrilling mixes from the DJ and welcome comic relief from Basket mouth, nothing extraordinary became of the night of the Soundcity MVP Awards 2016.

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