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Kusile Madlela Showbiz Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) being held under the theme: “Celebrating leadership through music” will celebrate President Robert Mugabe as well as other heroes for their contribution to the growth of the nation, especially the arts industry.
The awards ceremony will take place at the Harare International Conference Centre on October 16.
Zima chairman, Joseph Nyadzayo said this year’s theme was inspired by praises that the President had been getting after assuming the SADC and AU chairmanship.
“The President is Africa’s number one, SADC’s number one and Zimbabwe’s number one. Surely this is a feat that we can’t allow to go unnoticed.
“Africans all over have something good to say about our President because of the man that he is. He has managed to live a selfless life,” Nyadzayo said.
Speaking at the Zima 2015 launch in Harare last week, deputy minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Tabetha Kanengoni-Malinga said this year’s awards were about celebrating people while they are still alive, instead of acknowledging them when they are dead.
“I support Zima chairman Joseph Nyadzayo’s vision of celebrating President Mugabe’s life through music. Many revolutionary songs that have his name have been sung, but the idea isn’t to idolise the person, but celebrate his contributions, not only to our nation, but the region and world at large,” Kanengoni-Malinga said.
She said true celebration happens in someone’s face adding that the acknowledgement should also be passed on to other great leaders in other disciplines.
“May we never take them (musicians) for granted and relegate them to just entertainers. I hope that our musicians realise the power that lies in their music which has been harnessed to promote patriotism, behavioural change and foster unity.”
Nyadzayo said they had called on the services of a local events company – FreecomAds to organise this year’s awards ceremony after the South African company – Cutting Edge – they worked with last year, let them down at the last hour.
“We decided to rope in FreecomAd after a fallout with South Africa’s Cutting Edge who made payment demands that we could’nt fully comply with. We agreed to disagree and parted ways,” Nyadzayo said.
He said applications from artistes would be accepted at a later stage as they are still working on logistics for the awards ceremony.
“The submission dates will be announced sometime later in the year, but it’ll be sometime in June.
“The artistes will be able to submit their applications on our www.zimawards.co.zw website,” Nyadzayo said.
Zima 2014 winners only received their trophies last week, something Nyadzayo believes will not repeat itself this year as the 2015 gongs have already been designed.
“Trophies for this year’s ceremony have already been designed, what’s left is for us to decide where we’ll have them made.
“We’ll either have them made in Zimbabwe or South Africa but, I can assure you that they’ll be of top quality.”
Artistes will be awarded in 26 categories including the Lifetime Achievement award which was last year awarded to Cde Chinx.
Bongani Ndlovu