Videos in music awards

Malawian Music Awards will be back with more categories and better organisation this year, Diversity Leader chief executive officer Denis Mitole has disclosed.

Mitole made the revelation when asked about progress on the preparations for the awards, whose inaugural gala happened at Victoria Hotel in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, last year.

Among other things, he revealed that the red-carpet event is likely to take place at the Chinese built five-star hotel in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. However, he did not rule out the likelihood of returning to Blantyre with the refurbished Sunbird Mount Soche and the one-year-old Robin’s Park as favourable alternatives.

“The awards are destined to move from Blantyre because Diversity Leader has relocated to Lilongwe. Currently, we are planning to hold the presentation gala around the time we used to have Lake of Stars Arts Festival,” said Mitole.

The summer arts festival has been happening on the shores of Lake Malawi between September and October in the past years, but it has been postponed to next year.

MMA will return with music video categories, said the organiser.

“Changes include introduction of video awards, which will largely depend on submissions from the artists themselves because last year it was difficult to get the videos from TV stations. Unlike last year, winners will be decided by a council of judges, comprising seasoned artists, Music Association of Malawi representatives, critics and arts journalists,” he said.

Decided by public votes, last year’s edition was criticised for misplacement of winners.

Some nominees won accolades in categories that hardly define their beat. This was true about foodie ragga duo Symon and Kendal who won the honours in the reggae category.

The Lilongwe-based group beat Black Missionaries, Anthony Makondetsa and Skeffa Chimoto in the field.

The public poll by SMS  also created room for some musicians to vote themselves for more than two times, thereby skewing the votes in their favour.

Also exposed at the onset of the awards was local musicians’ failure to specialise and capitalise on one genre.

Nearly four of every 10 urban music artists earned nominations for more than two unrelated categories.