Sensational Islamic artiste, Alhaja Rukayat Gawat-Oyefeso, has been awarded as ‘Best Islamic Artiste of The Year’ at the 2017 edition of the City People Music Awards, which held on Sunday, August 6th, 2017 in Lagos.
Rukayat, we learnt, beat other top Islamic musicians to clinch the keenly contested award. The sonorous singer had in the 2016 edition of the City People Music Awards, won the ‘Best Female Islamic Musician’ award.
Gawat became very famous after a musical hit, ‘Ogbe Okan’, produced four years ago giving her the honour as the new face of the Islamic music by the publisher of City People magazine, Mr. Seye Kehinde.
At the event, Seye had said: “We decided to merge both the male and the female categories together this year and we were also very surprised that Alhaja Rukayat Gawat won, very fairly. We discovered that she is now the most popular and also the most accepted among all her colleagues. Her albums and other collaborations are also doing very well in the market, according to our studies. So, it is with pride that we are giving her this award again this year for the second time in a row. She won for the female category last year and she is winning for both the male and the female categories this year.”
While thanking the management of City People Magazine after taking the award, Gawat said: “I am very humbled by this award. I give glory to the Almighty Allah who made it possible for me to be alive to be this decorated. I dedicate the award to God and to my missing father, Alhaji Aremu Gawat. I also use this opportunity to thank my husband for giving me the chance to aggressively pursue what makes me happy and also to my marketer, Esan Sunday, Okiki Films for his investment and believe in my brand. This award is like a clarion call for me, never to rest on my oars. I promise my fans both in Nigeria and abroad to continue working assiduously towards making them happy. The best is yet to come from me.”
A mother of two, Gawat-Oyefeso attended Olabisi Onabanjo University and studied Mass Communications.
So far, she has produced more than six music albums, among which are: ‘Aye Le’, ‘My Father’, ‘Imole’, ‘Arinakore’,
She also has some albums that are yet to be released. These include ‘Oba Nla’ and ‘Ijo Ope’, ‘Ododo Eye’, ‘Igbatiwa’, among others. She is also currently in the studio working on her next album entitled ‘My Time’, which will be launched on 19th November 2017 during an event tagged ‘Imole Day 2017’. The album is to be marketed by Okiki Films and Productions.
-Rahman Is’mail
