Momentum Gathers As AFRIMA Ends 2014 In Grand Style
There is excitement already in the African music industry as the Saturday, December 27, 2014 date for the much awaited show of the year, the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) gets closer. The event is being put together in conjunction with the African Union Commission (AUC).
The ceremony, which holds at the prestigious Grand Ballroom, Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, is expected to wrap up year 2014.
AFRIMA is aimed at rewarding excellence in the continental music and media industry and before the main event, there would be the African Music Summit themed 'Reviving the Business of Music in Africa'. This is slated to take place in the morning of Saturday, December 27, at the Oriental Hotel.
According to the organisers, the pre-award programme 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.
Speaking on the event, an AFRIMA Juror from Zimbabwe, Delani Makhalima, hinted that, “There is so much excitement in store for guests who attend the both the Africa Music Summit and AFRIMA main award ceremony.
“The Summit provides ample opportunity for robust and strategic deliberations on developing the African music industry to compete with the better developed industries around the globe.”
He added that, “When we are done with the vital intellectual aspect of the event calendar, all attention turns to the glamorous, star-studded, cultural concept award ceremony for a fitting finale to the last weekend in 2014.
“AFRIMA is eager to welcome our African music stars from within and outside the continent, officials of the African Union Commission, members of the International Committee of AFRIMA and special guests.”
The International Committee of AFRIMA also revealed that part of the ceremony's programme will be to pay tribute to lives affected by the scourge of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in some West African states and terrorist insurgency in Northern Nigeria, Somalia and part of Kenya; both disturbing trends had necessitated the rescheduling of the award ceremony.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, which will be an invite-only event, over 30 AFRIMA 23.9-carat gold-plated trophies would be won.
The trophy recipients would 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.
Before now, there were calls for entries in 31 categories of the awards. Entries were received from May 15 and stopped on July 21. During this period, a staggering total number of 2,025 works were received for assessment from African music industry artistes, professionals and journalists.
On Tuesday, September 23, nominees for the 2014 AFRIMA were unveiled in Lagos with popular African music names jostling alongside emerging music forces for space on the list.
The public and AFRIMA Academy voting began on the AFRIMA www.afrima.org on September 30 and due to massive response received during the voting period, the November 4 closing date for the voting was extended to November 25.