Young talented Afro Pop singer, Immanuel Ndawanapo Ndume, popularly known as Ndawana, is the first Namibian to win a category in the African Upcoming Artists Music Awards (AUAMA) with his new single Ondjila Oile, the first time since 2015 when three of the categories have been opened up to any other artists other then from Nigeria.
Ndawana won in the category of the Best African Upcoming Afro-Pop Artist, one of only three top categories which have been opened to other African artists while the rest of the 20 categories are still only open to Nigerians. The awards took place September, 2015 in Abuja, Nigeria. Ndawana, who was unable to attend the awards, says he is very happy as this will inspire other young upcoming artists.
Since the inception of AUAMA, four times now, it has been staged on the African continent. For the first three years, all the categories, 20 of them, have been won by Nigerian upcoming artists since the competition has only been open to Nigerian artists, and this is the first time anyone outside Nigeria is allowed to partake and only in three of the top African categories.
The competition is aimed at promoting African upcoming artists. According to the organiser, Okoye Kyle Odi, the competition had 20 categories with more than 170 Upcoming Artists nominated. “The participants were entered in this competition without their knowledge or concern since the selecting committee got suitable and potential competitors from social media like Facebook, Sound-Cloud, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter,” he says.
Ndawana adds that the main reason has been to encourage young upcoming artists to make use of social media to market their talent. As Best African Upcoming Afro-Pop Artist he emerged as one of three winners in the three top categories which have been opened up to other Africans other than Nigerians with Nigerian artist, Chinnedu Olofu, judged The Best Upcoming African R&B Singer and an Angolian artist, Keane Jose, as the Best African Upcoming Rapper.
The top three African winners share a whopping U$80 0000 (about a million Namibian Dollars) while the rest of the winners share U$50 000 (about N$656,000) among them.
Ndawana released his hit single Ondjila-Oile last month after the song got linked by a friend on social medias going viral. The song is in Oshiwambo and basically means long journey and is an inspiring song encouraging an individual not to give-up on life no matter what the problems might be.
Culled from newera
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