admin
Jonathan Mbiriyamveka and Simbarashe Mutizwa
THE much anticipated list for the Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) nominees was announced yesterday after a rigorous adjudication process ahead of the awards ceremony scheduled for October 3 at the Harare International Conference Centre.
United Family International Church (Ufic) Choir dominates this year’s edition which makes a comeback after a seven-year absence.
The choir received five nominations for Best Contemporary Choral Music with three albums Divine Solutions Vol 2 and 3 and “We Are Family Vol 1”. The choir which fellowships at Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa’s church is also up for Album of the Year and Best Duo/Group categories for We Are Family Vol 1.
Following them is Jah Prayzah who was nominated in four categories namely Best Traditional Music (Tsviriyo & Kumbumura Mhute), Album of the Year, Best Male and Best Collaboration for a song Gore rapera which features Fungisai Mashavave.
Zimdancehall act, Soul Jah Love was nominated in three categories, Best Dancehall, Best Male and Album of the Year.
The Best House category which was included this year is a Bulawayo affair as four artistes were nominated in that category against Dr Clarence from Harare. Vying for that award from the city are Djembe Monks (Deep love & drums), Khuxxman (Vumelani Isangoma), Skaiva (Skaiva Singles) and Defined House (It’s time). Skaiva was also nominated for Best Newcomer for her Skaiva Singles album.
Mzoe 07 was nominated for the Best Alternative Music category for his Moogunation album.
Bulawayo’s up-and-coming RnB artiste Alaina’s music video director – Andy Cutta was nominated for “Best Music Video of the year” for her recently released video Juice Box. Cutta was nominated twice in that category for Blackbirds Waiting for Love.
Victoria Falls-based afro-jazz group, Mokoomba, were also nominated in the Best Traditional Music category while Black Umfolosi were nominated in the Best Acapella category.
Dickson “Cde Chinx” Chingaira will be this year’s recipient of the Chairman’s award which is being given to “someone who made a unique contribution to nation building through music.”
Zima chairperson Joseph Nyadzayo said they had received an exceptional response from artistes who submitted their works for consideration. Some artistes in the diaspora also submitted their works for consideration.
“This year Zima introduced an online entry system that allowed artistes to submit their entries electronically from wherever they were. Thanks to the national courier Zimpost, artistes around the country who did not have access to internet facilities were able to collect and submit manual entry forms,” Nyadzayo said.
He added that it was however regrettable that some categories such as Tshibilika did not have enough entries, a move which saw them merging some of the categories.
“Some categories did not get enough entries and therefore could not be adjudicated. One of these categories is Tshibikila which recorded only two entries.
“However, the adjudication panel decided that since Tshibilika had some technical similarities to sungura, the two entries were moved and judged under the sungura category,” Nyadzayo said.
He said only one category had been opened up for public voting as the rest were going to be judged by the adjudicators.
“The winner of the Song of the Year category will be determined by public votes via sms and WhatsApp voting,” he said.
Online Reporter