By Chrysanthus Ikeh
The All Africa Awards (AFRIMA) has finally closed submission of entry for its maiden edition, with a total of two thousand and twenty five (2,o25) entries.
The call for entries opened on Thursday, May 15, 2014 and was originally supposed to close on Saturday, July 5, 2014. However ,the organizer extended the closing date to July, Saturday 19, 2014 to accommodate more participants for the six day event, which will hold on Tuesday, November 4 – Sunday, November 9, 2014.
Thirty eight participants are reportedly from music and entertainment journalists, while others were from artistes, songwriters, video directors, music producers and record companies.
The submitted works will be further screened by a 13-person jury panel that’s part of the AFRIMA academy of voters, comprising 527 members grouped into two layers of adjudicators spread across the five regions of Africa. The jury members who have been carefully selected to represent the five (5) regions of Africa and Diaspora are from the following countries- Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, the UK and the USA, as well as a representative from the African Union. They are expected to arrive in Lagos on Thursday, July 31, 2014 for the week-long adjudication process in the presence of an international auditing firm.
Meanwhile, the organizers are yet to announce a venue for the event, but the theme for this year is ‘Reviving the Business of Music in Africa’
AFRIMA is a platform for music industry members to engage and deliberate on how the industry can be nurtured and packaged in a way that contributes to the GDP of the continent.
