With the 27th Telecel Ghana Music Awards (TGMA) set for May 9, 2026, in Accra, Stonebwoy heads into the ceremony as the undisputed benchmark of the Reggae/Dancehall Artiste of the Year category but his very dominance has become the loudest argument for abolishing the award altogether.
Stonebwoy has won the Reggae/Dancehall Artiste of the Year honour 10 times, with his most recent victory coming at the 2025 edition of the scheme. The landmark figure has done little to quiet the discourse surrounding the category’s future.
Content creator Kwadwo Sheldon has called on the Telecel Ghana Music Awards board to scrap the Reggae/Dancehall Artiste and Song categories, arguing they have outlived their purpose. His case centres on the departure of Shatta Wale, who for years provided the closest competition Stonebwoy faced in the genre.
“You cannot tell me that every single year we have the same people in the category, and there is an obvious winner because anytime you drop the list there is an obvious winner and it gets boring,” Sheldon stated.
For the 2026 ceremony, the Best Reggae/Dancehall Artiste nominees are Samini, Ras Kuuku and Stonebwo, a compact field that critics say reinforces Sheldon’s point about the category’s diminished competitive depth.
The debate arrives alongside a separate controversy involving Stonebwoy himself. He has reignited one of Ghanaian music’s most persistent disputes, again insisting he is a three-time TGMA Artiste of the Year winner despite official records recognising only two victories — his wins at the 2015 and 2024 editions. The contested third claim relates to the chaotic 2019 ceremony, which ended without an official Artiste of the Year declaration following a physical altercation on stage.
The 27th TGMA main ceremony is expected to be held on May 9, 2026, in Accra, with final venue details not yet confirmed.
Whether Charterhouse moves to restructure the Reggae/Dancehall category or preserves it intact, the conversation Stonebwoy’s decade of dominance has triggered may prove as consequential as the trophies themselves.
