Pinehas Nakaziko
Windhoek-The Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMAs) organizing committee hosted its cash prize-giving ceremony last Wednesday at Maerua Mall roof top, which saw winners in various categories smiling all the way to the bank.
The payments of the cash prizes started on Thursday night. Although some artists didn’t receive their money by Sunday morning, organisers said the money was likely to be deposited in their bank accounts by this morning. The ceremony, broadcast live on Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) 1, was well attended by media practitioners, celebrities and producers. The event also saw some dazzling performances from various artists such as Maestro, Dyna and Bradley Anthon, the latter stealing the show by performing his hit song Forever. Categories with the most cash prizes were the best male and best female artist of the year, won by Gazza and Monique English respectively. The two categories are worth N$100,000 each.
For all other music genre categories the winning amount was N$30,000 per category, while the special awards and public vote categories were N$22,500 per category.
Song of the year and radio song of the year were at N$37,500 per category, while best producer won N$37,500 and winner of the best album walked away with N$50,000. Best newcomer and best group or duo won N$30,000 per category.
NAMAs executive chairman Tim Ekandjo highlighted that next year the NAMAs will be looking at how it can reward nominees as well.
“The NAMAs is ours, thus the artistes together with the organisers must always work together to make it great,” said Ekandjo.