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Today the Charleston City Paper announced their 2024 Music Awards Nominees and the lists are… interesting to say the least.

I’m curious what everybody thinks of this? Did the City Paper stop paying attention to the local music scene?

Check it out:

https://vote.charlestoncitypaper.com/

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Interesting to say the least

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Oh yeahhhhh. I’ll say some immediate thoughts, lmk if y’all agree!

Feels very out of touch and almost like they were ~looking to re-use as much from last year as possible.

1. Re-Listing albums and material from 2023 that were ALREADY included in the 2023 awards…. make that make sense
2. Including multiple artists that are not based in or live in Charleston in any capacity
3. Misspelling artist names
4. Multiple categories almost mimic last years identically, when there are simply way more artists that deserve inclusion
5. Studio / Producer category should without a doubt be split into two separate categories – STUDIO and PRODUCER. Anyone within the scene would know how different, for example, my work and Hirow’s work is from what they do over at Coast Records. Producer & Studio are not exactly interchangeable words, and it leaves a lot of room to discredit the other active ~producers within the area

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My ‘PC’  response:

The Charleston City Paper’s nominee list this year feels like a regurgitation of past honorees, showcasing an alarming lack of awareness regarding the thriving local talent that defines our entertainment landscape in 2024. It’s disheartening to see such an important celebration of artistry fall short of its potential.

The CPMA Awards are meant to honor the best of the best in Charleston’s music scene, yet this year’s nominees paint a picture that is anything but current. The list fails to capture the immense wealth of talent that has emerged in the past year, instead recycling familiar names that, while deserving in their own right, do not represent the dynamic and diverse array of artists actively contributing to our culture today. When the same nominees are repeated year after year, it raises questions about the selection process and the City Paper’s engagement with the community it claims to represent.

In 2024, Charleston’s music scene is bursting with fresh faces and innovative sounds. New bands are captivating audiences, solo artists are pushing creative boundaries, and genres are blending in exciting ways. This vibrant ecosystem deserves recognition, yet it feels overshadowed by the nostalgia of the past and the financial gains of the future .

I can’t help but wonder if the newspaper’s editorial team is truly tuned into the local music scene. If they were, they would recognize that many of the nominees listed have been notably inactive this year, making their nominations not just questionable, but potentially misleading. In a community rich with talent, it is unjust for artists who are not actively contributing to be celebrated over those who are pouring their hearts and souls into their craft every day.

If the Charleston City Paper felt uncertain about the current landscape of our music community, perhaps they should have chosen to postpone the awards this year rather than present a list that does not accurately reflect the incredible work happening in Charleston.

In conclusion, it is time for the Charleston City Paper to take a step back and reassess its approach to the CPMA Awards. By embracing the wealth of talent that exists today and highlighting those who are actively shaping our cultural landscape, we can ensure that the awards truly reflect the best of Charleston’s music scene. It’s time to stop ‘defaulting’ nominee lists and actually get in tune with the vibrant, diverse, and dynamic talent that 2024 has to offer. The community deserves nothing less.

[Abareseque Ltd.]

Well said, @indigxld. Forward your response to Cris Temple at City Paper. [email protected]. Also I think you uncovered a great topic for an Extra Chill editorial.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by Abareseque Ltd..

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I agree with all of this. I just have to say as someone who organized it for two years, we barely could muster 100 votes for the entire hip-hop list of nominees. You guys are talking about “inclusion” and “representation” when a very small few were even interacting with the CPMA voting process at all. Someone like Lauren Hall who has won for several years maybe gets a few dozen votes. It’s not just all on the City Paper. It’s an independent paper that struggles just like Extra Chill does. We don’t have all these insane budgets to put the word out there — it’s all grassroots social media. Oftentimes the artists who were nominated didn’t participate in getting the word out. It takes a village. This is a tiny ass little competition that exists to celebrate the music talents. We used to have a bit more money and would hire a local artist to design the awards. It was all about shining a light on the scene. Just please keep that in mind. CPMAs are not what they used to be, but a large part of that is how few of us out there care enough to support the CMPAs by simply voting or buying a ticket to watch the awards show.

[Indigxld]

@chelseagreenheart I feel where you’re coming from. However, the only reason why there is a struggle to muster up 100 votes is because the city paper is only scouting in select places. There’s a massive scene in North Charleston that if they tapped into it and those people were aware of the nominations you would get more people in tune with it.. The reason why those numbers are so low is because they’re searching the same place for different numbers every single year. And this isn’t just coming from the stand of hiphop. This is coming from every category, seeming to be regurgitated, and I personally feel when you have something with the influence of the Charleston city paper, if you’re not gonna be able to do it right then why do it at all? Scrambling to find names before release, It shows a lack of care and a lack of actual knowledge of what’s going on outside of all of the technicalities of how hard it is for a platform to be “inclusive”.

l the million dollar question is how Charleston is Charleston city paper really? How well does the group of people that choose nominees and the votes for nominations, know what’s actually going on in the city outside of live nation events?

If this paper is supposed to be representing Charleston, I don’t feel like this list of creatives, which are all beautiful and great to their respective rights, reflects where Charleston music, entertainment, and arts stands currently.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by Indigxld.

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It’s giving unaware, old & stale. It’s giving we don’t really know so just mix in some of last years names with a few others. It’s giving we need help but don’t know where to start. It’s giving maybe we should leave the reviews and the attempt of awarding local artist to the publications and organizations that are present  locally. It’s giving try again next year !

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Just to be even more clear, these are the categories are bothersome to :

Album of the Year

Song of the Year

Studio/Producer

Indie Alternative Rock Band

Hip Hop Artist of the Year

Jam Band of the Year

Electronic Experimental

[chelseagreenheart]

@indigxld I agree with everything you and @benbeam are saying. I simply was trying to paint a picture of just how small this operation is. It should have been retired last year. CPMAs cannot evolve with the scene.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by chelseagreenheart.

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I think everybody here has made some good points. The CPMAs are essentially a marketing scheme for the paper. They get all of us sharing the link to vote, driving traffic to the City Paper website. And then when we vote, they have our contact info for the future, thus increasing their readerbase.

In the past there was a genuine connection between the Charleston City Paper and the Charleston music scene. They were actively contributing to the growth of the scene and it really made a difference. I’m talking back to the pre-pandemic days, when Kelly Rae was the music editor and then Heath picked up and did a good job too. Of course, @chelseagreenheart was great as well but she had to deal with a completely different environment than existed before the pandemic, and the paper’s priorities have changed.

There are a lot of things at play here, but the main, most important element is that the City Paper does not currently have a music editor. So, they probably aren’t paying attention to the scene at all.

However, there is also a major lack of interest in the up-and-coming music scene from Charleston’s general population. We have sold out shows all over town from touring Live Nation artists and then our amazing local artists struggle to get people to come to their shows, most of the time.

We can’t blame this on the City Paper but really Charleston is changing. The Paper could help with the amount of reach they have, and the printed version of the paper going out all over town every week. However, it would likely be a monetary sacrifice for them.

The lack of current local interest in the scene means that there will not be a huge readerbase for local music content in the beginning. This may start to shift over time with exciting content coupled with strong local talent, but when budgets are tight, it is hard to justify sinking money into something that may never return a profit.

This is something that I am very familiar with as the editor of Extra Chill. Do y’all understand how hard it is to get people to care about the things we write about local artists that nobody has ever heard of? There are bills to pay and covering the scene takes time that could be spent on things that do make money.

Overall, I don’t know what the solution is. I can see both sides of the coin here. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No Readers + No Budget = 2024 CPMAs

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From my experience these awards don’t change much. Don’t focus on this as recognition just improve your craft and focus on what you can do only the daily. Anyone that can generally impact your career is not gonna care about these awards