AFRIMA appoints new Jurors ahead of 2017 adjudication

Olisa Adibua

The All Africa Music Awards, AFRIMA, has appointed five African music professionals to the AFRIMA Academy of Jury that consists of the 13-man Jury and the 100-man College of Voters in line with the awards objective of an all-inclusive participation of African professionals in its decision–making body last week.

The new appointees include, Mr. Charles Tabu from Democratic Republic of Congo,DRC, Mr. Olisa Adibua from Nigeria, who is the fourth Juror joining the team and representing Western Africa and Ms. Hadja Kobele, a US-based Guinean music professional. Also, Cote D’Ivoire and Tanzania are making their debut on the AFRIMA Jury through the appointment of David Tayorault and Joett respectively. Mr. Tayorault started off his music career as a successful artiste before moving into music production and scoring huge hits with talents such as Magic System and Bisso Na Bisso. Tayorault, through his country, occupies the AFRIMA Jury slot for Western Africa. Similarly, Joett, a well-known songwriter and vocal coach in Tanzania will take up one of the Jury slots for Eastern Africa by replacing Uganda.

Announcing the new appointees on behalf of the International Committee of AFRIMA, the Associate Producer, AFRIMA, Ms. Adenrele Niyi, revealed the restructuring of the AFRIMA Academy of Voters was transparent in adherence to AFRIMA values of FACE IT(Fairness, Authenticity, Credibility Excellence, Integrity and Transparency. “The selection of the new members of the AFRIMA Jury was carried out through consultations with AFRIMA Regional Directors and partners globally to ensure that the new members are qualified professionals who care deeply about Africa, and want to be pushers of change on the continent”.

Ms. Niyi added, “There is a necessity to this restructuring initiative to allow us advance our transformation strategy and adhere to the leadership rotational structure in line with the AFRIMA objective of all-inclusive participation of professional Africans in the decision–making body of AFRIMA”.

Meanwhile, the appointment of the Jury is coming a week after the organizers revealed that they received a total of 4,816 entries for 2017 edition with the highest entries coming from Eastern Africa. 'The 2017 edition of the All Africa Music Awards, AFRIMA, is already in the works to becoming an epoch-making awards event after receiving nearly 5,000 entries from African music artistes and music professionals at the close of the two-month entry submission process on Monday, July 17.' 'The African Union and the International Committee of AFRIMA called for submission of entries for 2017 AFRIMA May 8, giving opportunity to African music artistes, record producers, songwriters, video directors and music journalists to enter their qualified works on the AFRIMA website. The overwhelming response to this call putting the total number of entries received for 2017 at 4,816, according to the organizers, is an astronomical increase from the 2,714 number of entries received in 2016 which amounts to a whopping 77.25% increase compared to last year. Expressing his excitement at the high number of entries in 2017, the AFRIMA International Advisor and member of the International Committee, Mr. Rikki Stein stated. The AFRIMA Jury is made of 13 members; two persons from each region in Africa; a representative each of the African Diaspora in Europe and North America respectively and a representative of the African Union Commission. The award is scheduled to hold between November 9 and November12 and it will be broadcast to over 80 countries around the world.