VGMA 2026: The Winners, the Shocking Snubs and the Controversies Ghana Cannot Stop Talking About

The 27th Telecel Ghana Music Awards happened at the Grand Arena where it belongs, and it did what it always does. It gave us winners to celebrate, snubs to argue about, and at least one red carpet moment that outlasted the ceremony itself online. I watched the whole night, and I read everything that came out of it in the days after. This is not just a list of who won. It is my honest reaction to how the whole season played out, from the nominations announcement in March right through to the fallout that is still trending as I write this.

The Big Winners — And Whether They Deserved It

Artiste of the Year — Our Honest Reaction

Black Sherif took home Artiste of the Year for the second time in three years, adding it to a five-trophy night that left very little doubt about who dominated 2025. I do not think anyone can seriously argue he did not earn it. His run this year, carried by “Top of the Morning,” was the clearest, most consistent body of work in the field, and it showed in how comfortably the trophies stacked up by the end of the night. That said, this was not a runaway with no real competition. Medikal had a genuinely strong campaign of his own, and the closeness of that race is exactly what made the aftermath so tense, once the red carpet cameras started rolling and old history resurfaced online.

Album of the Year — The Case For and Against

Album of the Year always splits opinion more than any other category, because it forces the board to weigh consistency against a single standout body of work. This year was no different. The case for a more established name is longevity and polish. The case against is that some of this year’s most talked-about individual songs came from projects that were not even nominated in the category, which is its own kind of statement about how disconnected “best song” and “best album” can feel in the same year.

New Artist of the Year — Right Call or Popularity Contest?

This category is always the hardest to judge fairly, because “new” rarely means the same thing to the board that it means to the streets. An artist can be genuinely new to an awards stage while already having built a real fan base for a year or more. That gap between industry recognition and street recognition is worth watching every year, not just this one.

The Categories That Were Hard to Argue With

Some results this year needed no debate at all. Stonebwoy’s Best Reggae/Dancehall Artiste win was close to a formality at this point, backed by a genuinely strong “Torcher” era that made the category feel like a coronation rather than a contest.

Diana Hamilton’s recognition on the night, including a performance widely praised as one of the best of the evening, was a reminder that gospel remains one of the most consistently excellent lanes in Ghanaian music, even when it gets less mainstream attention than Afrobeats or dancehall.

Her own nomination for the top Artiste of the Year prize, which she publicly called humbling, was itself a small sign that the board is at least paying attention across genres, even if the final winner rarely comes from gospel.

And Kofi Kinaata’s strong night across multiple categories matched what anyone who actually listened to “Shoulder” this year already knew — some wins are simply not up for debate.

The Snubs That Had Ghana Twitter in Chaos

The Petition That Nobody Saw Coming

The loudest controversy of the season did not even happen on the night itself. In March, Lasmid’s management formally petitioned the TGMA board over his exclusion from the Best Afrobeats Artiste nominee list, laying out a detailed case built on more than 111 million total Spotify streams, major hits including “Olivia,” “Friday Night,” “Ghana Jollof,” and “Meet 4 Corner,” and a Guinness World Record to his name.

The Album That Was Completely Overlooked and Why It Hurts

Fashion critic and industry voice Charlie Dior publicly questioned why Cina Soul was left off the Album/EP of the Year nominee list this year, a snub that stung specifically because her body of work has been consistently praised by people inside the industry, not just casual fans. When a critic with real standing calls out an omission by name, it tends to stick in a way a general social media complaint does not.

Kwaw Kese’s Verdict on the Whole Process

Hiplife veteran Kwaw Kese did not wait for the ceremony to voice his frustration. When the 22 nominee categories were announced in March, he mocked the entire selection process on social media, describing it as opaque and unpredictable, and sarcastically suggested the awards needed a rebrand around gobɛ, the everyday Ghanaian street food associated with no-frills living. Coming from an artist who won a TGMA himself back in 2009 and has spent nearly three decades in the industry, the criticism carried more weight than a random complaint from outside the business.

The Moments That Will Live in VGMA History

Best Performance of the Night — Ranked

Samini’s performance was singled out by multiple outlets covering the night as a genuine highlight, the kind of set that reminds a room why an artist earned “legendary” status in the first place. Diana Hamilton’s performance was described the same way, praised as one of the top moments of the entire evening, gospel holding its own on a stage that usually belongs to Afrobeats and dancehall.

The Red Carpet Controversy Nobody Predicted

The moment that actually dominated conversation after the show had nothing to do with a trophy. Entertainment pundit MC Portfolio publicly described feeling embarrassed after what he said was a cold shoulder from Black Sherif on the red carpet, claiming Black Sherif looked him up and down and walked away without a handshake. The story picked up more heat when an old interview resurfaced, one where a young, still-emerging Black Sherif had named Medikal as the artist he most wanted to collaborate with. The timing, just days after Black Sherif beat Medikal for Artiste of the Year, turned a small red carpet moment into a much bigger conversation about rivalry, respect, and how quickly the top of this industry can turn on itself.

The Venue Drama That Almost Derailed the Whole Night

Weeks before the ceremony, organisers faced real backlash over uncertainty about where the event would even happen. After concerns emerged that the previously planned venue was unavailable due to renovation work, some industry voices openly called for the show to be postponed entirely. Entertainment pundit Nana Frimpong Ziega called the situation embarrassing and avoidable, warning that it risked the TGMA’s standing as one of Africa’s most respected award shows, built over nearly three decades. Organisers eventually confirmed a last-minute return to the Grand Arena, the venue most associated with the show since 2019, and the night went ahead without further disruption once the announcement landed. But the fact that Ghana’s biggest music awards ceremony nearly lost its venue weeks before showtime says something about the pressure these institutions are under behind the scenes, pressure that rarely makes it onto the broadcast itself.

What VGMA 2026 Tells Us About Where Ghana Music Is Going

Put all of it together, the petitions, the public criticism of the nomination process, the venue scare, the red carpet fallout, and a pattern starts to show. Ghana’s music industry has more depth and more competing claims to excellence than any single awards board can fully capture in 22 categories over one night. That is not a flaw unique to the TGMA. It is what happens when a scene grows faster than the institutions built to recognise it.

The artists who felt overlooked this year, Lasmid and Cina Soul among them, are not fringe names complaining for attention. They are proof that the depth of talent in this country has outgrown any one night’s guest list. If anything, the fact that a management team felt confident enough to formally petition the board, in writing, with real numbers attached, is a sign of an industry maturing into something more professional. Complaints used to live entirely on Twitter. Now they come with a paper trail.

Abena Xclusive’s Final Verdict

Black Sherif’s win was fair, and I will not pretend otherwise just to be contrarian. But the loudest story from this year’s TGMA was not who won. It was how many legitimate voices, an artist’s management team, a respected critic, a hiplife veteran, an entertainment pundit warning about the venue, felt the need to publicly push back on how the whole process worked. An awards show survives on trust, and trust is the thing that felt shakiest this year, red carpet drama included.

Charterhouse has a strong show. The performances prove that every year, and this year’s headline sets from Samini and Diana Hamilton were reminders of exactly why the TGMA still matters as a cultural moment, not just a trophy count. What it needs next is a more transparent process to match the quality of what happens on stage, a nomination system artists and management teams do not feel the need to formally petition, and a venue plan locked down long before the last minute. Get that right, and next year’s headlines might finally be about the music again.