Hammer Of The Last Two Joins MTN Hitmaker Judges

The process of the third season of the MTN Hitmaker reality show has started with one big surprise. The surprise at the launch of the reality show last Thursday was the fact that Zapp Mallet, the big sound engineer who has been a part of the series for the maiden two seasons was not named among the judges for the new season. 

In his place will be another well respected sound engineer and maker of some of the most recognized beats since the beginning of the hiplife journey in Ghana. Hammer of the Last Two fame will join previous seasons’ judges Ofie Kudjoe and Bessa Simons to search for the next person to be crowned as MTN Hitmaker.

Hammer knows his music and having been in the forefront of searching for young talent on his own, he will be expected to bring that expertise to the show which will air on television for a 12 week period until the judges and the public choose one person as the 3rd MTN Hitmaker.

It is not very clear why Zapp May have been swapped with Hammer, except perhaps the organisers wanted a new face and therefore chose to refresh the panel without replacing the entire old set of judges of judges with a new one.

The launch which took place at the 9th floor of the Ridge Towers which also houses the MTN offices saw the performance of the reigning MTN Hitmaker winner Koo Ntakra. He performed some of the songs on his new album, one of which he did with Pope Skinny.

Koo Ntakra’s maiden album which was produced from the GHC100,000 prize money he received for winning the season two of MTN Hitmaker was launched at the event.

The organizers say the process to unearth the music talent would not be different from last year’s as they will collaborate with radio stations across the country for up and coming artistes to either drop their demos or participate in competitions organized at the stations to enter.

When all the demos have been received, it will then be the duty of the judges to listen and select more than 200 of them for the contestants to audition out of which a final 12 will be chosen to go into the MTN Hitmaker house for the reality show proper to begin. It is during that period that the public will be called upon to vote for their favourite contestant on weekly basis to aid the judges to evict one contestant every week till the final four compete for the one price at stake at the final event.

During the previous two seasons there were one winner and a runner up, however the organisers are looking at just a winner with the other three finalists being compensated in a way. Thus it’s a winner takes all competition this time around, it seems.

It will be recalled that Naterial who was the maiden winner of the MTN Hitmaker reality show received a cash amount of GH¢100,000. Similarly, Koo Ntakra who beat Cano-Z, Kofi Korea and K Bee to emerge winner also received a GH¢100,000 cash prize.