Zimpapers Logo

Entertainment Reporter
Organisers of the Zimbabwe Music Awards have revealed the criteria they have used to come up with nominees and the winners of this year’s edition.
With the entries for this year’s Zimbabwe Music Awards done and dusted, it has been announced that the adjudication process has also been completed.In a statement, Zima founder and chairman Joseph Nyadzayo said they have come up with a system that they believe will be impenetrable and will reflect an authentic ranking of artists.

“While the names of the judges remain anonymous, ZIMA can reveal that the panel comprises of music industry professionals with expertise in various aspects of music including academic, production and composition amongst others, he said.

“Previously, our panel constituted largely of media practitioners who had vast knowledge of what music was making waves and trending. Whilst we acknowledge that this is important, it is even more important for music to be scored based on its technical execution.”

He also said this year’s panel will also have members with an “ear” for music and in the case of music videos a technical “eye”.

“The panel will be looking at creativity, originality, entertainment value over all visual technique, artistic ability production, brand enhancement, extension audio quality, production technique, technical musicality cohesion and album flow,” he said.

He said this move was necessitated by the fact that ZIMA does not want to be just an awards ceremony but a reliable platform that young artists can use to measure their level of skill and improve on their craft.

Commenting on the issue of transparency, Nyadzayo said with the introduction of the online system everything is transparent.

“With this system each individual judge imputed scores on line and these scores went directly onto the server in South Africa before being forwarded to the auditors for final collation. There was no way the panel was able to know who had scored the highest or adjust their scoring later,” he said.

Nyadzayo also said they will soon hold a media demonstration session to show how this system works and that the nominees for the awards will be announced in the first week of September, the exact date and details of the event to be announced soon.