Glo's X Factor - West Africa

It’s no news that Nigeria’s telecom giant Globacom has brought the much famed X factor to West Africa; However it is very disturbing that no blog or sites or anything carries stories on either the Result (eviction) show or the Gala performances by the contestants! What this means is that if you missed the programme due to power outage, a faulty gen set, traffic, a football game, work related emergencies, amebo/tatafo related emergencies  there is no place for you to catch the juicy jist of what went down! Haa not when Nino Charmaine is an ardent lover of TV, Movies and all things entertainment.

Since we are on the verge of the 3^rd Result night where one more contestant would leave the show, let’s give y’all a quick recap…Warning DJ Switch already captured our hearts so we are openly hooting for her. We don’t know her, she doesn’t know us but we love the fight, the spirit, the hard work, the dedication and commitment in her. Mixed with all this is the fun, ease and fluidity each performance of hers embodies. Never have we seen a rapper go head to head with singers and beat them at their game and boi does she have a wonderful singing voice. Shez obviously a star and I hope some money bags and record labels are ready to snatch her up if she doesn’t win this competition because she is a sure money spinner.

Brief Summary, X Factor (read it up on Wikipedia) was brought to Africa by Globacom. We have 3 judges who also serve as mentors to the contestants who made it to the gala stage. Onyeka Onwenu ‘The Elegant Stallion”, MI “Mr. Incredible” and Reggie Rockstone “Ghana’s Legend”. I must give kudos for the choice of judges, very nice mix.

MI mentors the over 23yrs Category – Pheel, Princess Pat and DJ Switch

Onyeka mentors the under 23yrs Category – Ankara Boi, Eshun and Vicky

Reggie mentors the Groups Category – DNA Twins, Symphony and Smooth Boyz.

As at today, DNA Twins (whom we think really aren’t that talented) and Smooth Boyz are out of the competition. So we have 6 contestants left fighting for the title spot and fight did they on last Saturday’s gala show.

Saturday 17^th August 2013 was songs from the judges’ favourite movies. In order of contestant appearance, here’s what went down.

Ankara Boi: Show kicked off with him singing Seal’s Kiss By a Rose from the Movie Batman. We weren’t impressed with his singing; it was so flat, so thin & wasn’t rich enough. His Ankara like black cape was yurk but we did love his makeup. Overall we gave him an average mark.

Judging, Reggie was like it was good (he is the good guy of the show). MI was truthful, said he said it was an average performance nothing umph about it. But aunty Onyeka keeps deceiving these children by telling them they were excellent when they really were awful! Geez.

DJ Switch: Yes our girl came up second. She sang Beyonce’s Listen from the movie Dream Girls. For her sake, please y’all should go to the website (www.gloxfactor.com) to watch it. 

From her voice switch, modulations, control, switch to rap, stage performance and usuage, clothing, her personality, her flow with the beats; every single thing about her performance was top notch. She is exceptional.Best of all, we could see the respect and admiration in the judges faces while she performed especially on that of her Mentor; MI. MI looked at her and we could tell her was going like “gaddam, she is extremely awesome, why hasn’t anyone put money on her?!” He said she is the Xfactor and that is just true.

To us, she constantly raises the bar, you watch her and your happy, you enjoy it. Even the raw expression on her face is priceless. 

One thing we didn’t like about DJ Switc at the gala show doe was the turquoise blue lipstick slapped on her by some silly assed stupid makeup artiste. Who the hell ever does that? Match a lipstick to a tie, belt and sneakers? When it’s not a movie video or Broadway performance? Issssh… Moving along;

Pheel: We really do not know why he is still in the house because he keeps missing his lines, he’s a stiff dancer and performer and there is nothing exceptional about him! He is singing R.Kelly’s Goddam City from the Movie Batman too.

Now that’s a song and movie we love & so we hoped he’d do justice to it but nope Pheel disappointed us…We were more disappointed in MI for lying to the dude telling him that his performance was great when it was not. We can only only guess MI felt the performance because he loves the song! Pheel is like he lost it after the auditions. No fight no drive; nothing. He didn’t bring anything fresh to it. He sang it flat! We taya for these judge sha.

Vicky: She was next. Now Vicky has a lovely voice, a great singer but she is not an XFactor. She can only sing high notes. She can’t hit the low notes and She’s singing We don’t need another hero, all in low ranges… that song didn’t do her justice at all. She struggled all through the performance. She couldn’t connect with the audience. It was just off. What we do love doe is her outfit. Very on point.

Reggie for once speaks the truth about the performance, agreeing with MI that it was a wrong choice of song for her and he didn’t really feel the performance.

Eshun: This girl can sing. She is the only competition for DJ Switch. She is singing from the movie the Wizard of OZ; Over the rainbow. We also love Eshun but she lacks so many technicalities’… Damn her voice is lovely but her performance was boring. She is the type of singer that when she is singing you can ping, chat, read the newspaper etc. Basically, she is not engaging enough to watch and that is a no no for any performer who wants to be a show stopper and that is also one of the best selling points of DJ Switch!.

Now the person who did her makeup is evil and wicked because they used a white powder on the poor girl’s face leaving her face and neck grossly and visibly over powdered. Her outfit was lovely, her hair was okay but her makeup was awful.

Aunty Onyeka cried o, we don’t know why but we are guessing the producers asked for a little more drama from the judges and so the tears. Again her voice is exceptional but she more like background music than a real performer to us.

Symphony: The only surviving contestants in the group category under the mentorship of Reggie. They sang singing one of our best songs ever - Aerosmith’s I don’t wanna miss a thing from the movie Armageddon. 

We prayed and hoped they kill it but alas the costuming was wacked, the positioning was wacked and the singing was even more wacked. Harmony zero, singing zero, costuming zero… the only good thing is that they got the lyrics right. We wonder why the guy with a different outfit wasn’t placed in middle & why his jacket was made from a different fabric from his pants? It is our recommendation that the best singer in the group goes solo now that there is still time else these boys would just waste his time.

They were our shocker for the night, Onyeka and MI went easy on them but we sum up their performance in one word; crap.

Princess Pat: Our utmost respect to her. We salute her everytime she graces the stage. She has an awesome voice and is a beautiful lady. We respect her for coming this far, seriously we see her being among the last four (DJ Switch, Ethsum, Vicky and Princess Pat). She is singing “From a distance”. Princess Pat's voice is as awesome as Ethsum’s and best of all, she can hit both the low and high notes. We enjoyed watching her sing, we were drawn in unlike in Ethsum’s case when we could chat on the phones, etc. We paid attention and watched her from beginning to the end because she is that good.

The best part of her performance for us was the look on MI’s face as he watched her. Respect, admiration and sheer unbelief at what a lady in her age can pull off.

Toolz: To her wardrobe people, her accessories people, her makeup people, her hair people we @Ninocharmaine say a big thank you. Toolz has been a full complete package since the show started. Simple, elegant, sexy, lively and beautiful. Kudos, please keep up the good work on her. She has been looking engaging, and a delight to look at.

Lastly the judges complained about voting, seriously we vote for our girl DJ Switch but we feel N50 per sms is too much. Yes we enjoy the show but the sms should have been N10 per sms at most N20…

We will be seeing the result show later tonight and we will most def write about it. We encourage you guys to vote and keep voting.