Talanta Awards: From Willy Paul To DJ Mo, Here Is The Whole Story Laid Bare

Talanta Awards has grown in leaps and bounds since inception to be one of the top Gospel Awards in America and Kenya. But Talanta is not your typical awards. It’s different in a way that while all the other awards you’ve heard about honour existing superstars, Talanta goes to the grassroots to identify, mentor, award and mentor upcoming talents. 

From DJ Mo, to Alemba, to Silas Mwenda, to Bern, to Willy Paul; they’ve all gone through the hands of Talanta Awards founder and mentor, Meggie Waruri. And now after Talanta Awards Kenya Edition on 25th April, the future looks so much bright right now.
I sat down with Talanta Awards founder, Meggie and she expounds on what lies ahead for the awards and mentorship programme.
Fresh from Talanta Awards UK, which was attended by Faith Muturi, DJ Mo and Eunice Njeri, the Kenyan edition never disappointed. The impact and the response were overwhelming.

The Kenyan leg saw Meggie and her team traverse 5 counties scouting for talent which they would bring back to Nairobi. The successful ones reported to a weeklong camp for mentorship ahead of the awards. So the awards came and Christine Savatia was declared the winner Talanta Awards – Kenya edition 2015.
But unlike other awards where it’s the end of the road for winners and organizers; Talanta Awards contestants are not thrown into oblivion.
This year for instance, all the contestants recorded a single and even shot a video for the same courtesy of J Blessing and will be dropping soon. The video also features mentors like Faith Muturi (who is also a singer), Esther Laiyana, Bern and Benachi among others.
From Kenya, the talent search goes to the US ahead of the main Talanta Awards in November at Neema Church in Dallas, Texas; so far, scouting has been done in St. Louis and Atlanta and now Boston, Massachusetts, Arizona and Ohio are next on the list. Meggie and her team are look at having almost the same number of contestants they had here; 15 for the awards.
The top 3 from UK and Kenya; among them Evelyn Chepkoech and Christine Savatia will also be privileged to attend the main awards in Dallas, Texas, as well as next year’s awards in the UK. They will however not attend as contestants but they will be there to showcase what they have picked from the mentorship programme.
Meanwhile, the mentorship programmes are ongoing as the Kenyan team has been assigned two/three contestants to mentor continuously and follow up on their progress.