Piksy up for K30m Kora Award

Local urban artist Piksy, who has bagged Malawi’s sole nomination for this year’s Kora All Africa Mu­sic Awards, stands to win K30 million if he triumphs in the Best Male Southern Africa category for which he has been nominated for the song Moto.

The Pan African cultur­al awards ceremony that rewards the finest African talents will be held on March 20 2016 in Windhoek, Na­mibia.

The organizers of awards revealed that the winner of the Best Artist of the Con­tinent will receive a grand prize of $1 million (about K600 million) while the category winners will cart home $50 000 (about K30 million).

This year’s edition, target­ed at celebrating excellence in musical artistry in Africa and Diaspora, has 27 catego­ries across regions and gen­res, and a monetary reward associated with each trophy.

Announcing his nomina­tion at the weekend, Piksy said he is not moved with the stellar names, saying Malawi has got chances of winning.

“Well, it’s 50-50, the com­petition is tough, but I do believe in my gift, and I know there are many others that could have been picked. For them to pick me that still gives me a chance to win. Everything can hap­pen in every competition, if Malawians can vote, I can make it.

“All in all, it feels great to be nominated, it’s some­thing that came from no­where, I didn’t expect it. I’m super excited and it feels good that my music now is recognized outside Malawi which is something I have been looking forward to for a long time,” he said in an interview.

Piksy has a hurdle to sur­mount though as this cate­gory has one of the South Af­rica’s leading rappers AKA. Other nominees are Gazza from Namibia, Zambia’s Petersen, Angola’s Coreon Du and C4 Pedro.

The Kora Awards are given annually for musical achievement in sub-Saharan Africa and since its incep­tion in 1994, the only oth­er Malawian to have been nominated for the award is Wambali Mkandawire in 2002.n