Sizwe Sibiya
Sun City will this weekend welcome back the very best of Mzansi’s artists for the 28th South African Music Awards.
The SAMA awards will take place across both Saturday and Sunday before being broadcast to the nation on SABC 1 on Sunday night at 8 pm.
It will be presented live by Nandi Madida.
All of SAMA’s previous awards categories remain, but organisers have introduced an additional category in partnership with TikTok.
“Artists and pioneers are constantly finding ways [to] give us their music on different platforms. We want to celebrate their efforts through the TikTok Viral Song of the Year,” revealed SAMA’s official on an Instagram page along with the 10 nominees for the new category.
DJ Maphorisa, already leading nominations among artists, found himself with an impressive sixth nod. He could be in line to take home the first ever Viral Song of the Year award with his song “Banyana”, produced with Tyler ICU.
While the SAMA awards organisers received a “record number of entries” in February, DJ Black Coffee and jazz saxophonist McCoy Mrubata did not have to submit entries for their category as they will be presented with SAMA achievement awards.
Black Coffee, who won a Grammy award for his 2021 album titled Subconsciously, will be honoured with the International Achiever Award. Mrubata meanwhile will be honoured with the Lifetime Achiever Award.
The winners will be judged by a panel of 120 judges including our editor at large Everson Luhanga.
Each judge is a leader in their respective field, and the list includes broadcasters, media experts, journalists, music critics, academics and more.
Image source: Instagram
