All Africa Music Awards date announced
Dates for the inaugural All Africa Music Awards (Afrima) have been announced.
Initially, the awards were scheduled to take place on November 9 in Calabar, Nigeria, but were shifted due to on-going sponsorship deals.
Afrima, in conjunction with the African Union Commission, is set to bring 2014 to a close with a show-stopping awards ceremony scheduled to be held on Saturday December 27 at Oriental Hotel, in Lagos, Nigeria, organisers have announced.
“Afrima will be rewarding excellence in the continental music and media industry at the main awards ceremony. Preceding the ceremony will be the African Music Summit themed ‘Reviving the Business of Music in Africa’ slated for the morning of Saturday December 27 at the Oriental Hotel.
“The summit is a platform for African and global music industry stakeholders to network and deliberate on how the music industry can be nurtured and structured to be a major contributor to national and continental economies,” reads a statement signed by the awards project director, Adenrele Niyi.
For the 2014 edition, the award project opened on May 15 for entries in 31 categories and closed on July 21.
A total of 2 025 works by African music industry artistes, professionals and journalists were submitted for assessment.
The Afrima nominees list unveiling occurred in Lagos, Nigeria on September 23 with popular African music names jostling for recognition alongside emerging music forces.
The Public and Afrima Academy voting began September 30 and ended on November 4.
However, public voting was further extended by three weeks up to November 25, thereby allowing African music fans more time to vote for their favourite artistes.
“More than 30 of Afrima’s 23.9-carat gold-plated trophies will be received by music acts or groups in their respective categories. The trophy recipients will also include an Afrima Legend Awardee and the African Entertainment/Music Journalist of the year. To spice up the proceedings will be sizzling performances from some of Africa’s top performing artistes and bands,” says Niyi.
Malawi banks its hope in musician Lawi who was nominated for his hit The Whistling Song for the best male artiste in Southern Africa. Other nominees in this category are Eddy Tussa, Kueno Aionda, The Dogg featuring Chesta, Heavy K featuring Professor for Beautiful War and Jah Prayzah.
