Shatta Wale, MzVee grab AFRIMA nominations

The African Union and the International Committee of the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA), unveiled the nominees list (Regional category) for its sixth edition on Wednesday, at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos in Nigeria.

The Regional category for the Best Female Artistes and the Best Male Artistes of the five regions – Western, Southern, Eastern, Northern and Central Africa were announced.

Two of Ghana’s top musicians, Shatta Wale and MzVee earned nominations for this year’s awards.

Shatta Wale has been nominated for the Best Male in Western Africa and goes up against Nigeria’s Kizz Daniel and Burna Boy, as well as Mali’s Salif Keita.

MzVee is competing for the Best Female in West Africa against talents such as Teni, Simi and Yemi Alade from Nigeria and Aya Nakamura, a French pop singer of Malian origin.

The 2019 nominees’ list for Regional and Continental categories emerged from the 8,157 entries from AFRIMA’s online portal which closed on Friday, August 2,2019.

The remaining 25 Continental categories will be released on Friday, August 23,2019, after auditing by the awards’ international auditors.

Drawing from their vast experience, a 13-man jury went through a week-long process of thorough screening, categorising, assessing and grading the thousands of entries to select the best.

The AFRIMA online voting platform will be open to the public on Sunday, September 1,2019 and will run till November 22,2019, where both Continental and Regional nominees in the 36 AFRIMA awarding categories will compete against one another for the coveted 23.9 carat gold-plated AFRIMA trophy.

The 2019 AFRIMA is scheduled to start on Wednesday, November 20-23, 2019 and will be a four-day fiesta of music, glamour and afrocentrism.

There will be many activities starting with the Welcome Soiree, followed by the AFRIMA Music Village, the Host City Tour, the Africa Music Business Summit, Nominees Party and concluding with the live Awards ceremony.

The awards event was established in 2014 by the International Committee of AFRIMA, in collaboration with the African Union (AU) to reward and celebrate musical works, talents and creativity in Africa, while promoting the continent’s cultural heritage.