The African Union Commission and the international committee of the All Africa Music Award have announced that they have received 8,880 entries for the AFRIMA 2021 edition.
In a press release sent exclusively to Qed.ng on Monday, it was gathered that this year’s entries were received from 50 African countries across the five regions of Africa and 10 countries from Europe and North America including Spain, the United Kingdom, United States of America, France, Portugal, among others.
According to the head of communication and partnership, AFRIMA Zineb Seyad, the increase in numbers serves as a source of encouragement to the organization.
“We are encouraged by the number of entries received for the 2021 AFRIMA. Of the 8,880 entries submitted this year; West Africa leads the pack with 30.4% of the total entries followed by Eastern Africa with 28.8%, Southern Africa with 22.9%, Central Africa and North Africa and International acts have 12.3%, 4.9% and 0.7% respectively,” the statement read.
The head of culture, African Union Commission Angela Martins also stated that; “The increased interest in the awards is a clear indication that AFRIMA, a platform of bringing Africans together through the instrumentality of music and culture, is growing immensely across Africa and globally, which is a very important goal for us. Also, it is a signal that artists and actors in the music industry are becoming resilient in the face of global challenges.”
Qed.ng had reported that the international jury of All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) announced three new categories for the 2021 edition which included best soundtrack in a movie, series or documentary, best global act and breakout artiste of the year (renaming most promising artist).
Following the end of the AFRIMA 2021 entry submission, a 13-man international jury of AFRIMA would arrive in Lagos on August 29, 2021 for the weeklong adjudication process. The AFRIMA jury’s responsibility involves screening, categorizing, assessing, grading, and selecting the nominees into the 40 different regional and continental awarding categories.
After this process is concluded, the 2021 nominees’ list would be unveiled during a world media conference in the second week of September 2021, while public voting will follow immediately.
AFRIMA calls on followers and fans of African music to catch up with updates on AFRIMA website, www.afrima.org, its social media platforms, @afrimawards and all broadcast affiliates to know who this year’s nominees’ finalists will be and for more information about the awards ceremony, which will take place in November 2021.