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5TH MTN SWAMA NOMINEES UNVEILED

30/11/2021 08:45:00 BY MMELI MKHWANAZI

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MBABANE - The MTN SWAMA nominees have finally been unveiled.

SWAMA is the acronym for Eswatini Arts and Music Association. This year’s awards will be the fifth edition with MTN Eswatini being the main sponsor.
The nominees unveiling party was held virtually yesterday at 7pm on the MTN Eswatini Facebook page and SWAMA YouTube channel last night. According to SWAMA’s Public Relations Officer Zoe ‘Zoe Genesis’ Nonde, the nomination period started on November 13 and ended on November 23, 2021. The conditions for nominations were that the artist nominated should be a liSwati national or be a legal resident in the country.

Condition

Another condition was that the artist should have released material between September 1, 2020 and November 13, 2021. “We are excited that we have reached the next phase in the MTN SWAMA awards process. The past two years have been challenging for artists and mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Artists deserve to be awarded for the work they have done, despite the emergence of COVID-19,” said Nonde. She also said they were happy that nominated artists were finally revealed, meaning the voting process was going to start. The awards ceremony will be held on December 18, 2021 and this year’s theme is ‘Flexa’.

As reported earlier by this publication, this year’s winners will be awarded E10 000 for each category. Worth noting is that the amount has doubled as artists were awarded E5 000 in previous years. The ‘Song of the Year’ award, which is the ultimate award and most coveted, will be awarded E20 000 this year.
Last year’s ‘Song of The Year’ award was scooped by the song ‘Happiness’ by DJ Cup and Slotta featuring Mvelo. The awards’ main aim is to pay tribute to artists who have played a pivotal role in the revolution of the music industry in Eswatini since independence to date as it seeks to legitimise, economise and bring sustainability to the recording industry of Eswatini. An exciting dimension for this year’s awards is the use of the trending and convenient instant messaging app, Ayoba, which does not use up any data for MTN users.