It's 6 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes and about 38 seconds :-) until South Africa once again puts on the annual glamorous award show at Sun City to honor South African, Swazi, Tswana and Sotho musicians that have excelled, to say the least, in their respective genres, and have made a significant contribution to the South(ern) African entertainment industry.

I, for one, am an angered woman because it seems I will always miss the opportunity to go to this event. I am wondering why it is never held during the festive season? Actually, the best albums are usually released during this season, so by the time the awards come, they have enjoyed their mass airplay on YFm, Metro FM, Kaya FM, Ikhwezi FM and others, as well as had their share of dancefloor madness. You can find all these radio stations online, just let google do the work for you :-)

Kabelo (my personal 2006 favorite)is hosting the event, and I'm pretty sure he will walk away with a few SAMAs to his name. He's currently running for Best Kwaito Male, Best Kwaito Album (for Exodus) and Song of the Year for "Dubula". The track, alongside DJ Sbu's "Remember when it rained" (House rendition of the Josh Groban classic) ended every party and club session over the festive season. Traditional South African music and contemporary jazz seems to be making a huge appearance this year after constant talk of it being overshadowed by the notorious kwaito industry in the recent years. Simphiwe Dana scored a few nominations in these categories as well as for best female artist and I would be ecstatic if she won. Her Zandisile album was the rockas.

I was shocked to find out that Soweto Gospel Choir (recent grammy winners), Jonathan Butler and Ringo Madlingozi were sparsely nominated this year. The pool seems to be filled with many new artists such as Grassroots, Cassette, Jozi, Jamali, Lesego, Swazi Dlamini, to name a few. Admirable, I think its a feat to encourage and welcome new talent. Inspite of this, I'm confident our usual favorites will walk away with an award or several. The likes of Mafikizolo, Mina Nawe, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Thebe, Arthur, Hugh Masekela, Oliver Mtukudzi, DJ Sbu, Cleo, Revolution, Vusi Mahlasela etc.

The most anticipated awards are Song and Album of the year. Lets just say I am throwing an all SA music party if Kabelo wins both titles!
You can keep up with listeners choice awards, as well as read news and find out more about these musicians at South African Music Awards

Lekker chomi!