Sun City prepares to rock with glitz, glamour and music awards
SUN CITY will be abuzz next weekend when celebrities descend on the popular resort for the 23rd instalment of the South African Music Awards (Samas).
Somizi Mhlongo seems to be a favourite as he returns to co-host the event with the award-winning comedian Tumi Morake.
Mhlongo’s impressive stint on the stage last year appears to have given him the nod again from the organisers. Morake and Mhlongo are two brands with powerful personalities, presenting a sink-or-swim situation.
The award that always gets tongues wagging is arguably the record of the year category, and the stakes were raised when the nominees were revealed on Friday on SABC 1’s Live Amp.
BET nominee Babes Wodumo’s Wololo (featuring Mampintsha) seems to be a favourite again, with three nominations, battling it out with another crowd favourite, Amazulu, by songstress Amanda Black, who received four nominations.
The careers of both these newly signed artists took off in style, as evinced by the album sales and their domination of the Metro FM nominees’ list. Black quickly went platinum in just three weeks after release.
Not surprisingly, the leader in the record of the year pack, Nasty C’s Hell Naw, is also in the running. He received six nominations, with Kwesta following him closely with five. And, yes, he is also nominated for Ngud’.
Other nominees are AKA’S One Time, Black Coffee featuring Shekinah – Your Eyes, DJ Clock featuring Prom Knights – Wolves, Locnville – Cold Shoulder, Matthew Mole – Run and Miss Pru DJ with Ameni.
The Sama 23 Top 20 is based on independent radio tracking companies, Radio Monitor South Africa and BMAT South Africa, which tracks the number of times songs are played on local radio stations.
The qualifying period is between March 1, 2016 and February 28, 2017. Voting is still on until Saturday May 27 at 9pm.
The awards this year will honour the global achievements of soprano Pretty Yende with the international achiever award.
For the lifetime achiever awards, three stars of the industry will be honoured: Rebecca Malope, Don Laka and Babsy Mlangeni.
“We as the Sama organisers value these honours highly. We believe that our veterans who served the industry with unmatched dedication and gave us timeless music should never be forgotten by history. As such we look forward to etching the names of Rebecca Malope, Don Laka and Babsy Mlangeni in our prestigious list of lifetime achievers,” said Recording Industry of SA chief executive Nhlanhla Sibisi.
“We say well done on such colourful careers and let this be a token of our appreciation of your talent as a nation.”
Outfits are always something to look forward to at the Samas. At last year’s event, Nomuzi “Moozlie” Mabena shocked with a beautiful green-and-white ball gown, looking chic and conservative. Luthando “Lootlove” Sosha also dazzled the carpet in a long hot pink dress.
The highlights of last year’s awards were Nathi taking away five awards, the “bhut’ bae” comment from Lunga Tshabalala while doing the red carpet with Bonang, Emtee winning the record of the year award and Arthur’s political speech on stage.
One can only wonder what the awards have in store for us this year.