Fikile Mbalula defends Mabala Noise

Minister of Sports and Recreation Fikile Mbalula has taken to social media to share his thoughts on the Metro FM Awards that left many upset over the winners, who they said did not deserve it.

The record label, owned by ANCYL treasurer Reggie Nkabinde, received backlash from, among others, EFF’s Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu, who accused it of “corrupting” the awards that took place at the ICC in Durban on Saturday night.

“Record Labels spend a lot of (*stolen) money to vote for themselves and their artists to win #MetroFMAwards, and then the awards become bogus,” said Shivambu, while Malema said the awards were not the right platform to honour Caiphus Semenya and Letta Mbulu because they had been “corrupted” by Mabala Noise.

Nkabinde was called on stage by one of his artists, Nasty C, after winning Song of The Year, but was booed by unhappy attendees of the event.

However, the sports minister has come to the stable’s defence, saying people just found an easy victim in Mabala Noise because it was owned by an ANC-aligned person. Mabala artists are just talented, he said.

“I hate it when people play politics over music industry awards. We ANC we don’t own record labels our members own record labels,” he told his followers. However, Twitter was having none of it, saying it was suspicious that the stable’s artists won in every category they were nominated.

“Metro FM is also aligned to ANC because of SABC. But of course we should ignore the coincidence,” said one.

“Yho! Indeed, people relate to their own kind. Nothing justifies Mabala Noise’s undeserved success at the #MMA16,” said another.

Even the stable’s artist, Riky Rick, left most wondering if he was exposing the alleged corruption at the Metros after saying he was not happy about his award. His comments got support from fellow musician DJ Black Coffee, who said it was time for Metro FM to stick to just being a radio station.

Watch Riky Rick’s speech posted on Instagram by Masechaba Ndlovu below:

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