Vision Music Awards- A defining moment for Ugandan talent

May 13, 2010

MUSIC Awards naturally celebrate music and this will be no exception to the The Vision Awards that will officially be launched later this year.

By Dominic Muwanguzi

MUSIC Awards naturally celebrate music and this will be no exception to the The Vision Awards that will officially be launched later this year.

With a broad knowledge of the music industry, Vision Group, the flag bearer of these awards, is set to organise an unprecedented event.

Barbara Kaija, The New Vision acting Editor-in-chief, says: “With five newspapers, five radio stations, a stable of magazines and one operational TV station, and others in the offing, there is no doubt that The New Vision has the largest audience-reach countrywide and the required capacity to organise nation-wide music awards.”

Using the Vision Group platform, the company intends to gather entries from all over Uganda and this will consequently bring on board new and untapped talent to the industry without relegating the already famed.

“We were the first media house to popularise the artistes when we launched the Weekend Vision, a special section focusing on entertainment, in 1994.

There is, therefore, no doubt that we shall do a professional job as we have always done because at The New Vision we aim at excellence and innovation,” she states.

These comments are echoed by Joseph Batte, the coordinator of the awards. “We shall streamline the nature of awarding music in Uganda which has been in disarray in the past,” he says.

Batte points out that the development of music in Uganda is paramount without overlooking any genre. “Writing about local artistes has been our priority in entertainment.

We have never been biased against any genre. For example, Kadogo Kamu (country music), despite the stereotype it has from a certain section of fans, still finds its way into our English paper,” he explains.

Considering that the music industry is growing by the day, we have a sizeable number of artistes and a great portion of these sometimes perform at international and regional events — there is a vacuum of directing music into the right direction by carefully defining the music.

“We have had genres misinterpreted, for instance Afro-beat. It is not performed by any artiste in east and central Africa.

What our artistes do is Afro-Pop — a fusion of synthetic sounds. The former is a fusion of Jazz, funk, juju and is performed largely in West Africa,” says Batte, who doubles as a music critic.

With a glaring mishap like this, the emphasis has been put on categorising music, according to its sound.

The categories which amount to 51 include new ones: Vocal Performance, judged on the premises of the artiste’s respective vocal performance; Dance Record of the Year; Contemporary Kandogo Kamu; performed with synthetic sounds; traditional Kadongo Kamu, performed with a raw solo guitar; World Music Artiste of the Year and World Music Song of the Year.

“The organising committee of these awards is highly reputable and will recognise all genres with out dismissing any.

World music has often been ignored and yet it’s the most sold-out genre internationally with artistes like Geoffrey Oryema, Suzan Kerunen and Semite, flying our national flag high at international festivals,” he points out.

This is an incredible forte for the Vision Awards compared to other awards in the past which have been inadequate in terms of defining music and creating a credible platform for artistes to express themselves and their music.

Who is eligible for the awards?
Record of the Year:,/b> Music expert will look at the sound and arrangement of a record.

Best Live Guitar Performance: Experts will determine the best guitar performance.

Best Saxophone Performance: Experts award the most stirring live saxophone in a song.
Best Drum and Percussion
Performance: Experts award the best drums and percussion performance.

Best Bass Guitar Performance
Experts rewards an instrumentalist who played an awesome bass in a song.

Album of the Year: The Winning album combines many things, including songs that stand out in an album.

Song of the Year: A people’s-choice award, where the winner is determined by the public vote. It will be given to the most popular song of the year.

New Artiste of the Year/male: Will go to a new male artiste with an outstanding song.

New Artiste of the Year/ female: Goes to a new female artiste with an outstanding song.

Male Vocal Performance:
Awards a male artiste who displays vocal gymnastics.

Female Vocal Performance: Goes to an outstanding female singer.

Collaboration/Duet of the Year: Two artistes with the best collaboration take this award.

Dance Record of the Year: Goes to the best song to facilitate or accompany dancing.

R‘n’B song of the year: A song that displays a smooth lush style of vocals and a polished production style that characterises this genre of music.

R‘n’B Artiste of the Year: An outstanding artiste who consistently performs.

Hip hop Song of the Year: Goes to the best song, defined by key stylistic elements.

Hip hop Artiste of the Year: Best artiste who consistently performed this style of music throughout the year.

Outstanding Innovative Recording of the Year:
Any artistically innovative recording that is not common on our local music scene.

Gospel Artiste of the Year: A gospel artiste whose recording was outstanding.
Gospel Song of the year:
Outstanding song written to express personal or a communal belief on Christianity.

Reggae Song of the Year:
An outstanding reggae song based on a rhythmic style, characterised by accents.

Reggae Artiste of the Year:
Best artiste who performed this style of music and had outstanding records.

Afro-pop Song of the Year: Song that has characteristics of a music style that is popularly referred to as kindadali.

Afro Urban Song of the Year: Best Afro song, but with a modern (urban) feel to it and fuses local elements with other modern music style worldwide.

Male Afro-pop Artiste of the Year: Best male artiste with outstanding song(s) that have a kindadali feel to it.

Male Afro Urban Artiste of the Year: Best male artiste with an outstanding Afro-pop recording with an urban feel.

Female Afro-pop Artiste of the Year: Most outstanding female artiste’s kindandali song(s)

Female Afro Urban Artiste of the Year: Most outstanding female artiste who performed and recorded this type of music.

Afro Pop Album of the Year: Album that had more than one good Afro-pop song, with a good arrangement, sound, etc.

Afro Urban Album of the Year: Album that had more than one good Afro-urban pop song, arrangement, sound, etc.

Record Producer of the Year: Producer of the best record.

Best Video of the Year: Outstanding video featuring elements of a good video.

Video Producer of the Year: Producer with outstanding clips.
Zouk Song of the Year
Outstanding song with major elements of Zouk.

Zouk Artiste of the Year:
Outstanding artiste with outstanding zouk song(s).

Folk Pop Song of the Year:
Best song that fused folk and modern elements.

Traditional Kadongo Kamu Song of the Year
The most outstanding old school song, mostly guitar, with a distinctive Bakisimba beat.

Traditional Kadongo Kamu Artiste of the Year: Outstanding artiste who excelled in this style of music.

Contemporary Kadongo Kamu Song of the Year: Kadongo Kamu music that fuses traditional and modern styles.
Contemporary Kadongo kamu Artiste of the Year: Artiste whose production was the best and stood out.

Live Band Song of the Year: Song recorded by a band featuring mostly live instruments which was the best.

Live Band of the Year:
Best band that performs and has recorded songs live.

World Music Artiste (group) of the Year: Best artiste (group) that performs and records world music

World Music Song of the Year: Outstanding song that combines Western popular music styles with non-western music or indigenous classical forms of music countrywide.

Best Cultural Group: Cultural group that has recorded and performs traditional music.

Male Artiste of the Year: Male artiste with excellent recordings.

Female Artiste of the Year: Female artiste with outstanding music.

Most Disciplined Artiste: A people’s-choice award given to an artiste whose disciplinary record was impeccable.

Life Achievement Award: Top veteran artistes who have contributed to the music industry.

Songwriter of the year: Songwriter with more than one outstanding song.

Artiste of the Year: Artiste who wins the most number of jams that won him more than one award and nomination.

Compiled by Joseph Batte

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