NAMA nominations explained

The Namibia Annual Music Awards (NAMA) organising committee recently announced the 2018 nominees to be awarded this month. Many music enthusiasts are, however, not happy with the nominees and have expressed themselves on social media claiming that the NAMAs are unfair. tjil had the opportunity to interview a couple of the judges from the panel that selected the nominees on how their judging criteria is. All the judges affirmed that quality and technical perfection are essential. International judge Olufunke from Benin said the first things she looks for on a song are strong vocals and emotional deliverance. According to her, songs need to be engaging enough for one to feel the expression and musical energy. Lyrics are another important aspect which she pays close attention to and how the artists fuse their message to create the image of the song. Olufunke also said the artist's work should be unique, new and must have a commercial appeal enough to get substantial airplay, which translates into sales. “What they want to convey has to be meaningful and make sense. Technical execution is critical. The audio and sound quality should be balanced and there should be no distortion or fluctuation in the sound levels. The musical elements including melody, tone, rhythm, pitch should be evident and originality and technique well presented,” she said. In total, the NAMAs 2018 received record entries of 978 entries in total, the most entries since the inception of the NAMAs in 2011, and a total of 282 entries were disqualified. The most common reasons for disqualification were either duplicate entries, no physical material delivered, song is a single and not part of the entered album. Other reasons include the release date is outside the qualifying period, too many genre categories entered and the album is less than 30 minutes in length.Judge Chali Mulalami from Zambia urges next year's applicants to study this year's winning material and use the knowledge to improve their work while judge Sammy Thuo from Kenya says applicants need to show more boldness and experimentation. “A song (audio or video) is a story. The rules of storytelling are that you capture your audience in the shortest time space possible, give them something interesting to digest during the main body and finally, give them a climatic ending,” said Mulalami. The judges concluded by saying artists need to become technically aware and acquire additional skills so they can branch out and have knowledge in different areas. In this age of technological advancement, they believe networking and getting to know other musicians and at the same time building their contacts is important for success. June Shimuoshili

NAMA nominations explained

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-08

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NAMA nominations explained

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-08

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