MASERU — A new music video competition to reward excellent production was launched last week by Hus24media..
Organisers said the competition, dubbed the Music Video Showdown, seeks to promote an urban music culture among the youths and reward excellent video production.
Retselisitsoe Matobako, one of the organisers, told the Weekender the competition is meant to reward local artistes.
“This is our first big project to reward artistes who have worked hard,” Matobako said.
“We looked at artistes who have music videos already being shown on local television and have a huge fan base in their respective genres and these six met the criteria.”
He said local artistes, Stlofa, Kommanda Obbs, Dunamis, Phoka, Khahliso Mphephoka and Mthibo, were in the frontline to win the inaugural award.
Matobako said the six commanded a huge fan base in Lesotho’s music circles.
He added that contestants will be drawn from such genres as famo, gospel, hip hop and kwaito music.
Matobako said they had teamed up with Relebohile Mafatle, better known as Rated R, because he has a huge influence on the youth.
“We teamed up with him because he is an influential figure and has been around the media scene representing urban culture,” Matobako said.
Mafatle hosts Urban Jamz, a hip hop music video show on Lesotho Television. He is also attached to popular radio station People’s Choice (PC) FM.
He added that the competition is being run via a Short Message Service (Sms) through Vodacom Lesotho and Econet-Telecom networks.
Fans can sms their favourite artiste’s name to a given number and those with the highest number of votes stand a chance to feature in the music video to be shot in April.
Matobako said they will release results of the first votes tomorrow to ensure transparency.
“On Friday we are going to issue the first voting ratings for each artiste. This is for transparency and to allow them to strengthen their promotions and campaigns,” he added.
The winner of the competition will get an all-expenses-paid music video shoot.
“The budget for a music video differs according to the music genre so the budget will be disclosed after the winner is announced,” he said.
Mafatle said the competition is being promoted through radio stations Ultimate FM, PC FM and on LTV.
“The three mediums have a huge followership that we hope will help reach young people following local music.”
Mafatle said the competition is coming at a time when artistes have been seeking assistance to shoot their videos.
“I have requests from a number of local artistes seeking assistance to shoot music videos. Because this is a pilot project, it was wise
to get already established artistes such as the six,” he said.
