Call for entries: Eswatini Gospel Music Awards 2020

This year’s event, which will run as the Lockdown Eswatini Gospel Music Awards (LEGMAs), will seek to embrace the effort to flatten the COVID-19 curve and advocate for a coronavirus-free country.

How to enter

Entries can be submitted via email at egma@gmail.com. The closing date for entries is 8 August.  

Voting lines will open on 30 August following the nominees' announcement and close on the night of the awards.

“Due to the imposed lockdown rules and regulations, the awards will be held at a venue with no audience and will be live on all social media platforms and other mainstream media channels such as TV and radio,” the event organisers said.

Eligibility

• Any artist may be entered into multiple categories and two copies of each artist’s CD/album are required.
• The top five nominees in each category will be announced at the nominees’ announcement event, which will be held during the last weekend of August.
• Albums, singles and recordings eligible for entry in the technical categories must have been released between 1 January 2018 and 30 December 2019. A special consideration will be made under this clause for a window period until 30 March 2020.
• Entry is open in respect of any qualifying recording artist being a person who has been a legal resident in the Kingdom of eSwatini for a minimum of 12 months from the date of entry; or is a Swati citizen or Swazi record company that owns at least 50% of the master recording contained in the entry in question. In the case of international artists, rules will apply as per category definition.
• Entrants who are not members of the Association of Christian Artists in eSwatini must pay an entry fee of 600 lilangeni.
• The same applies to artists’ groups provided that at least 50% of their members comply with the qualification criteria set out above. The LEGMAs reserves the right to request documentary proof that all artists, producers, directors and engineers meet the qualification criteria as set out herein.
• Unless otherwise stated, awards are presented for album releases. An album is defined as a commercially available compact disc containing a minimum of seven different and previously unreleased sound recordings by the artist or group in question (in other words, no re-released albums or best-of albums), and not less than 30 minutes of previously unreleased recorded performance.

 Prizes

• Statuettes are awarded to the winning artist except where the category states otherwise.
• Nominees who fail to attend the award ceremony will not be eligible to receive the statuette. Exceptions to this rule will be considered provided that an application that gives written notice of the nominee’s inability to attend is made with an accompanying motivation, which must be received by the LEGMAs 14 days prior to the main event.
• Should the application be successful, the nominee may be required to record an audio-visual interview for each category entered for broadcast purposes, a copy of which must be delivered to the awards' offices no later than seven days before the awards night.

Broadcast and exploitation rights

In order to produce the awards event, the LEGMAs will require the following from each qualifying artist nominated as a finalist in any category:

• The right to use each nominee's photograph, name, image, biography, interviews and recorded performance at each event of the awards, for marketing, advertising, filming, and broadcast purposes.
• The right to use the sound recordings or part thereof embodied in the album entered in the awards for the purposes of the marketing, advertising, filming and broadcast of the awards, e.g. AV and TV promos.
• The right to a maximum of one song and accompanying video per sound recording submitted for the competition, for possible inclusion onto a CD and DVD to be manufactured and distributed for sale in South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and in other stated areas.

Judging criteria 

Unless otherwise stated, all categories will be judged using the following criteria:

• Artist ability.
• Creativity.
• Production.
• Entertainment value.
• Audio quality.
• Cohesion.
• Interpretation.
• Musicality.

Below is the full list of categories:

Public categories

These categories will be decided by both the public and the judges. The public vote will constitute 60% and adjudication shall provide the remaining 40%.

• Best Amadodana Gospel Group
• Best Female Gospel Artist 
• Best Zion Gospel Group
• Best Mass Choir 
• Best Male Gospel Artist
• Best New Gospel Artist
• Gospel Artist of the Year
• Gospel Song of the Year
• Gospel Classic of All Times

Special categories

These categories will be decided by an organising committee, adjudication panel and the national executive committee.

• Lifetime Achievement Award
• President’s Award
• Minister’s Award

Technical categories

These categories will be decided by the adjudication panel, except for the Most Downloaded Gospel Song category, which will be based on statistics by a network provider.

• Most Downloaded Gospel Song
• Best Album
• Best Producer
• Best Gospel Composition
• Best Styled Artist/Group
• Best Traditional Gospel Song
• Best Contemporary Gospel Song
• Best Gospel Duo/Group 
• Best Music Video
• Best Collaboration

All queries must be emailed to egma@gmail.com.