Y’ello Pulsers, the MTN UG Hip Hop Awards are back.  The annual recognition and celebration of growth in the Hip Hop industry in the country is back with the 5^th edition 2021 scheduled to take place on 16^th May 2021.

Since the Hip and Hop also represents us the young people, the MTN Pulse segment is, as usual, taking the lead in this year’s edition.

The team at MTN Pulse made official the release of nominees for the various categories that will be awarded at the award ceremony in May, if you guys deem them worthy. Voting has already commenced and is officially open exclusively on the MTN Pulse microsite using the embedded link herein; www.pulse.mtn.co.ug/vote.

Speaking at the announcing ceremony of this year’s awards, Hellen Kirungi, the MTN Youth Segment Manager said that Hip Hop still remains a popular genre of music in Uganda among the youth, which informs MTN’s continued support towards its growth.

“Hip Hop is a music genre that continues to take centre stage in Uganda among the youth. Many young people have taken it up and are doing very well for themselves. Hip hop allows them to express themselves and be who they want to be without limits. This is what we are about at MTN Pulse. We are about creating a community of likeminded people who want to live life without fear or limits and that’s why we are happy to be part of these awards every year,” Ms Kirungi said.

2021 marks 5 years since MTN Uganda started backing the Hip Hop industry to organise the awards.

Last year, in 2020, MTN sponsored the first televised rap battles that saw several rappers pitched against each other in battle categories that included battles on the street, free style and in the forest, among others.

Kirungi noted that the 2021 awards will feature the Pulse Nation Cypher competition that will allow new and undiscovered talent to showcase their abilities in an online rap battle.

In the Pulse Nation Cypher challenge, participants will be required to download the MTN Pulse Cypher beat from the microsite under the Pulse tube, record a one-minute video of them rapping to the beat for one minute with the mention of MTN pulse Nation at least once, and then upload the video on the MTN Pulse microsite.

Participants will be required to rally their fans and friends to go to www.pulse.mtn.co.ug to vote for them by liking their video.

“The video with the highest engagement gets to win 1,000,000 UGX on the Awards night. The 1^st Runner up will walk away with 800,000, 2^nd runner up with 600,000 and 400,000 to the pulser in the 4^th position.” MTN announced in a statement.

UG Hip Hop awards organizer, Afsa Umutesi said that with MTN’s support, the industry has continued to record steady progress with Hip Hop artists getting favourable airplay on local radio and television stations.

“Hip Hop artists continue to shine out there. If you listen to the top ten most requested songs on radio today, six of them will be Hip Hop artists. We are happy with this progress and would like to thank MTN for standing with us for five years in a row now,” Mr Umutesi said.

Don’t forget that it is very easy for youths to become MTN Pulsers; because all you have to do is to just download the Pulse App, available on both google play and iOS play stores.

The awards categories this year are:

• Album of the year
• Male artist of the year
• Female artist of the year
• Rookie of the year
• Inspirational song of the year
• The collaboration of the Year
• Rap Fusion of the Year
• Video of the year
• Best Producer
• Diaspora Artist of the year
• Eastern Uganda artist of the year
• Northern Uganda artist of the year
• Western Uganda artist of the year
• Central Uganda artist of the year
• Lyricist of the year
• Hip-Hop Deejay of the year
• Mixtape of the year
• Hip-Hop media personality of the year
• Sweet Sixteen
• Lifetime Achiever
• Hustler of the year
• SPECIAL AWARDS