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Tina Musonza

Arts Correspondent

Urban groove musician Rockford Josphats, affectionately known as Roki, is set to be honoured at the upcoming eighth edition of Changamire Festival Awards.

Changamire Festival Awards chief executive officer Jackson “Zimboy” Muchechetere recently told The Herald Arts the awards had three throne seats catering for one Zimbabwean Urban Groove artiste and two influential South African artistes.

The South Africans to be honoured at the awards ceremony are Nadia Nakai and Blackie, with the event slated for April 12 at Long Cheng Plaza in Harare.

“We have honoured Roki as a local artiste as we embrace his commitment to the music industry,” said Muchechetere. “It is a lifetime commitment and it requires recognition. As we embrace our local artiste Roki, we will be celebrating a lifetime achievement of 20 years of pushing the culture, Urban Groove, producing the passion and everything.”

Muchechetere said preparations for the event were going on well.

“The difference between other ceremonies and the Changamire Festival Awards is that we are branching out more to the African arena, the continent as a whole,” he said. “We would want to bring people that are really inspiring to upcoming artistes.

“We are in the process of making sure that they will attend the ceremony. As we know, the passing of AKA is still weighing on artistes and our Nadia Nakai is still considering coming to Zimbabwe. We are still to get feedback, but when we approached her at first before AKA died she had said that she was coming.

“Right now we can say she has not been emotionally stable, but we are doing everything on our part to make sure that she is going to be there at the awards. We hope she will be in the right state of mind and as she comes through. Blackie will be coming to Zimbabwe for the first time.”

Muchechetere said there were 30 categories for the awards.

“The number is still the same, we did not make additions or subtractions,” he said.

“We award 30 people at Changamire awards. We only changed some of the categories like the best DJ. We have divided it into three.

“There is the best Hip-Hop DJ, best Afro Pop DJ and the best Amapiano DJ. The categories always make sure that it’s all Hip-Hop. On urban music we concentrate on performing artistes.

“The difference between the Changamire Awards and the Zim Hip Hop Awards is that Zim Hip-Hop awards look at the overall and we look at performing artistes directly.”

Muchechetere said preparations were at an advanced stage and the four-week rehearsals for event had started yesterday.