Metro FM has wound up with egg all over its face after the radio station was forced to disqualify some big-name performers and revise 13 categories of its annual music awards nominations.
The station confessed yesterday that "after carefully re-checking all the nominees, we realised some of them do not qualify for the 2008 awards as their albums were released outside the stipulated time frames".
Nominees who do not qualify because of the blunder include R&B artists Danny K and Loyiso Bala. Metro FM is a predominantly R&B station.
The statement comes two weeks after the original nominees were announced at a VIP party in Johannesburg, which included celebrities such as Julius Malema and Bob Mabena.
The Metro FM Music Awards or MMAs have been considered second only to the MTN Samas as prestigious awards.
Loyiso said of his disqualification: "I didn't enter these awards myself and my record company Sony BMG sent a letter to Metro to bring this out in the open after my nominations were announced. We knew something was wrong. We were pro-active to save us the embarrassment. I'm okay with it. I was not trying to hide anything."
Danny K said he was surprised to be nominated, particularly because his album was released in 2006.
Other nominees disqualified due to the time constraint include Ntando, Maggz, Jimmy Dludlu and Bheki Khoza.