The African Union has unveiled the calendar of events of the 2016 All
Africa Music Awards tagged AFRIMA 3.0 at the AUC-AFRIMA Joint Conference
in Banjul, Gambia.
The AUC-AFRIMA Conference was attended by officials of the African
Union, AFRIMA 2015 winners, and stakeholders in the creative/
entertainment industry in Africa, media executives, and musical
artistes.
Formally declaring the activities of AFRIMA 2016 opened at the event,
the Head of Culture, African Union Commission, Ms. Angela Martins
posited that The African Union was pushing forward its developmental
agenda and policies through the AFRIMA platform.
The calendar of AFRIMA 3.0 was announced with a take-off date for
submissions of entries for AFRIMA 2016 via the online platform on
www.afrima.org. The submission of entries for the 2016 edition of the
awards starts on Monday, May 30 and closes Saturday, July 30, 2016.
The President and Executive Producer of AFRIMA, Mr. Mike Dada, urged all
artistes, managers, producers, record label owners, publicists and
agents to submit their works or those of their artistes within the
stipulated time in order to stand a chance at the awards.
“No matter how popular an artiste or their works are, if they don’t
submit them for the awards, they will stand no chance of winning as the
AFRIMA jury will not go sourcing for artistes works themselves,” he
said.
Dada disclosed that AFRIMA Jury would screen the nominees from August 2
to August 16, 2016 after the end of submissions. The full list of
nominees will be announced on August 17, 2016.
However, he announced that the voting period for the general public
commences from August 26, 2016 while that of the AFRIMA Academy will
start on September 26.The entire voting process will close on November
5, 2016.
Also, there will be a Nominees Party in Nigeria on November 3, 2016,
while the Africa Music Summit where the African music industry will be
discussed and AFRIMA Music Village will hold on November 4 .
The grand finale, the AFRIMA awards ceremony, which is the third
edition, holds in Nigeria on Sunday November 6, 2016.The eventual host
city in Nigeria will be announced later in the year by the African
Union.
On the event sequence, Dada harped on AFRIMA’s stance on transparency,
stating that AFRIMA will continue to maintain exemplary standards and
uphold African music and culture as it had done since inception in 2014.
“The process is very transparent and the public can follow the entire
process online and make any enquiries to the AFRIMA secretariat,” he
said.
The All Africa Music Awards, AFRIMA, is a music property developed to
celebrate, reward and showcase the rich musical culture of Africa,
stimulate conversations among Africans and between Africa and the rest
of the globe about the great potential and values of the African culture
and artistic heritage for the purpose of creating jobs, reducing
poverty, calling attention of world leaders to Africa and promoting the
positive image of Africa to the world.
AFRIMA is centered on the promotion and marketing of African music and
is by far the largest gathering of such magnitude of stakeholders in
Africa and hosting is earnestly sought by different African countries
due to the great leveraging opportunities that the platform provides. It
will be broadcast to 84 countries around the world.