The African Union and
the 13-man Jury of the All Africa Music Awards, AFRIMA, have unveiled
the Nominees List for the 2016 edition of AFRIMA, the continent’s
leading music awards.
The highly anticipated
Nominees List for the 2016 awards tagged AFRIMA 3.0. was announced to
the world media on Monday, August 22, at the Protea Hotel, GRA, Ikeja,
Lagos with live online broadcast. In attendance were officials of the
African Union Commission, members of the AFRIMA Jury, members of the
International Committee of AFRIMA, past AFRIMA winners and nominees,
media executives and other stakeholders in the creative/entertainment
industries of Africa.
According to the
Moderator of the adjudication process, Mr. Mike Strano, about 2700
entries from African music professional were received during the period
of May 20, 2015 to July 30, 2016. Describing the nominations process as
careful and thorough, Mr. Strano harped on the Jury’s resolve to be fair
and transparent.
“The Jury is very
careful about being accurate right from the process of verifying
eligibility of entries to the process collating and finalising results.
It is an evolving process but one we work painstakingly at to ensure
transparency and fairness”, Strano explained.
Speaking further Mike
Strano who is the Regional Director, Eastern Africa/Co-Producer, AFRIMA
said, “There are 34 categories of the award but only 10 are released
today August 22, which are the Regional Categories. A new category
introduced this year is the “People’s Choice Award” which comes out from
a healthy debate by the International Committee of AFRIMA and the
Jury.”
The Best Female Artistes
and Best Male Artistes of the five regions have been released while the
nominees in the continental categories will follow suit seven days
after.
Describing the jurors’
experience as rewarding, the Head, Culture Division, African Union
Commission, AUC, Mrs. Angela Martins, reiterated the AU and AFRIMA’s
objectives of unity among African artistes and the need for continental
integration while celebrating its rich music and heritage.
She said, “The
adjudication process was very rewarding and as one privileged to be part
of the Jury, I was able to discover the widespread talents in the
different regions of our beloved continent. Now, that the AFRIMA
adjudication has been finalised, we expect that in the coming months,
Africans will recognise these nominated artistes by putting in votes for
all of them.”
One of the two jury
members representing Eastern Africa, Mr. Richard Kawesa, a Ugandan,
eulogised AFRIMA’s decision to digitalise its screening process for
2016. “In the past years, we were using paper to grade but now in 2016,
AFRIMA has shown innovativeness with all of us making use of technology,
laptops, tablets and mobile devices to screen and grade with ease.”
Public voting for the
nominees in the different categories of the awards will open on August
30. In partnership with the AUC and the Official Host City, Lagos State,
the AFRIMA 3.0. calendar of events for November 4-6, 2016 will include
the Africa Music Summit on Friday, November 4, and the AFRIMA Music
Village, an open concert-style festival featuring nominees and other top
billed music stars. The grand awards ceremony holds on Sunday, November
6 with over 2,500 guests expected in Lagos, Nigeria for the various
events.