Why AFRIMA shouldn’t be called ‘Africa’s Grammy Awards’ – Mike Dada

Mike Dada is President and Executive Producer of All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA). In the following chat, he opens up on the judging process, Grammy parallels, the journey so far, and more. Excerpts: Weekend Magazine: At what point did you decide to put the Africa Music Awards together? Mike Dada: It was a journey that […]

Mike Dada is President and Executive Producer of All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA). In the following chat, he opens up on the judging process, Grammy parallels, the journey so far, and more. Excerpts:

Weekend Magazine: At what point did you decide to put the Africa Music Awards together?

Mike Dada: It was a journey that started in 1999 when we wanted to develop an event that would bring Africans together through music and entertainment. Later we discovered somebody in Southern Africa had started something like that already and we tried to join forces. After a while it didn’t work out. In 2008 we started AFRIMA with the involvement and partnership of the African Union Commission. It took them about four years to get back to us, but here we are today.

WM: Is it growing steadily, and according to your expectations?

Dada: We are happy that it is being recognised by Africans. We have had about 96 per cent nominee attendance and that is a huge one for us because it comes with a huge challenge of cost of logistics for you to fly and accommodate everybody. We knew that financing it would be a challenge for us over time, but we are handling the challenges just fine.

WM: Speaking of financing, how do you get funding for AFRIMA?

Dada: I must confess that we have some private sponsorship. However, the largest support has been coming from our colleagues in the international community of AFRIMA and PRM Africa. The truth of the matter is nobody would take it up for us and we have to do it ourselves. It’s an idea that we have incorporated and for us there’s nothing we are doing everything to make it work. Some people have said sponsorship should be taken up by governments in Africa because of the amount of logistics and millions of dollars required every year to produce such a show.

WM: How do you pick judges? 

Dada: We have a 32-man jury because we realise that the credibility of the award is very critical for us. The jury ensures that all the works nominated are screened and marks awarded. The jury is spread across Africa and the diaspora, and the African Union Commission. We have two African judges per region and a popular and technical vote. The technical vote comes from an academy of voters, which is also done online.

WM: What is the judging process like and what do the judges look out for?

Dada: Basically, the judges look out for accessibility, technical production, arrangement. Don’t forget that English is a universal language, regardless of language barriers and so can be accessed by professionals. And these people are professionals. They are production people, producers across the continent. They look at technical quality, accessibility and some other elements to ensure that the judging process is objective. 

WM: You have partnered the African Union. What does that entail? 

Dada: The partnership is based on certain shared objectives, such as using the music platform, culture and entertainment, to ensure integration of the continent, the progress of Africa, and bring out what is beautiful about Africa. And we realise that we have common objectives. African Union propagates and communicates our ideas to the world. In this way, people of the continent are part of the process and get to understand what AFRIMA is all about. And AFRIMA is advanced. We use several ways to communicate, such as conducting advocacy programs to share our common objectives and so on.

WM: Will AFRIMA hosting rotate among African countries?

Dada: Absolutely, that is the idea. It will rotate among African countries within a period of three years. Nigeria is having its second term. 

WM: AFRIMA has been nicknamed ‘Africa’s Grammy Awards’. How do you feel about that? 

Dada: I think we are doing a disservice when we call AFRIMA ‘Africa’s Grammy Awards’, because AFRIMA is AFRIMA and the Grammy is the Grammy. They use Grammys to promote their culture and that’s what we are also doing. We are propagating Africa for greater competitiveness. When you think of AFRIMA, what quickly comes to mind is glamour, fashion, live music, and ultimately Africa. We are using this to change the narrative of Africa.