The All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC), will be holding a stakeholders’ conference in Johannesburg, South Africa on Friday, July 10, beginning from 10.30 GMT/UTC.
An AFRIMA statement said the Johannesburg conference is expected to bring together stakeholders from Southern Africa and AFRIMA partners to discuss strategies and actions needed to facilitate better opportunities for stakeholders from the region in the AFRIMA initiative.
Those expected to attend include policymakers, artistes, media executives, music producers, record label owners, artistes’ managers, video directors, music entrepreneurs, music enthusiasts, officials of ONE.org and relevant government officials in Southern Africa.
“The stakeholders’ conference will feature panelists from the continental Secretariat of AFRIMA and the Southern Africa region of AFRIMA among who are AFRIMA Executive Producer/President, Mike Dada; Sponsorship and Communication Director, Matlou Tsotsetsi (South Africa); Chairman, AFRIMA International Media Committee, Steve Ayorinde (Nigeria); and AFRIMA Jury members from Southern Africa, Delani Makhalima (Zimbabwe) and Chris Cyren (South Africa); Creative and communication Manager for ONE [1] campaign, Nde Nfodika among others,” the statement added.
“We are very keen on engaging the people who are critical to the awards process to give them a platform for knowledge sharing and capacity building. Without the artistes and allied professionals in the music industry there can be no awards to give out,” said Tsotsetsi.
Some of the winners of 2014 AFRIMA edition from South Africa are Heavy K featuring Professor ‘Beautiful War’ for Best Male in Southern Africa category; Mi Casa ‘Jika’, for Best African Electro category; Robbie Malinga and Mojalefa Thebe ‘Impilo” (South Africa) are joint winners for Producer of the Year category with Nigerian producer Don Jazzy with the song ‘Eminado’.
AFRIMA entries close on Monday, July 20.