NAIROBI - The much hyped Groove Awards, Kenya's premiere Gospel Awards show finally went down on Saturday 2nd May 2009 at the KICC Tsavo Ball Room. After a month long voting process, where most nominees rallied their supporters to lock in votes, Jimmie Gait's Muhadhara song (view video) emerged as the biggest winner scooping three awards for Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Cellulant Ringtone of the Year. Daddy Owen emerged winner of the hotly contested Male Artist of the Year beating Jimmie Gait, Juliani, Kanjii, Rigga and Bantu as singer Kambua Manundu bagged the Female Artist of the Year award beating Eunice Njeri, Emmy Kosgei, Mercy Wairegi, Neema and Ruth Wamuyu. View the complete list of winners here

Jimmie Gait

This year's edition proved to be arguably the best awards show in its history. Not only did the artists show much more enthusiasm in rallying for votes and creating a lot of buzz for the show, but the general public turned up in large numbers and filled the nearly 3000 seater hall. The event was also televised live on NTV and was the first time an awards show was broadcast live in Kenya. This is the first awards show of the year (and is looking to being the only one) as Kisima Awards, KORA Awards and Chaguo la Teeniez Awards were all postponed.

MOG receive Best Group

VIEW MORE PICS OF THE EVENT
(pics by Mwangi A Kirubi)

But the awards show is not complete without the performances, sideshows as this is one of the rare times in the year that we get to see most Gospel artists in suits and evening wear. Performances were from MOG, Daddy Owen, African Childrens Choir , Mbuvi, Kambua, Jimmie Gait, Emmy Kosgei, God's Image, Rose Muhando and Kanjii and also featured appearances by K24's Jeff Koinange as well as comedians Churchill (Daniel Ndambuki) and Eric Omondi.

Jack Odongo receives Special Recognition Award

Prior to the winners announcements, KenyanGospel.com made predictions on who we thought would win. This was not a scientific polling and was loosely based on how their songs faired on radio and their general popularity as well as the buzz the artists were creating to drum up support for votes, both online and on the ground. We got 13 of the 25 categories including very competitive Dance Group of the Year for Ignitaz and Hey-Z for New Artist of the Year. Some of the categories were easily predictable like Live Performance of the Year going to Kanjii and MOG bagging Group of the Year. Check out the predictions and see where we hit the nail on the head and where we completely missed.

Groove Awards 2009 Winners
Groove Awards 2009 Pictures
Groove Awards 2009 Predictions

PREVIOUS EVENT

Groove Awards 2008 Winners
Groove Awards 2008 Nominees
Groove Awards 2008 Pictures