This Saturday, the whole of Africa will be bustling with excitement, as the 5th edition of the MTV Africa Music Awards will hold in Durban, South Africa.
Already, some of the nominees have busied their social media pages with pleas and campaigns for support to ensure they win their categories.
But while the buzz continues, let’s do a quick recap of the fun facts about the MAMAs.
- The awards will hold on Saturday, July 18th which coincides with the 97th birthday of South African legend, Nelson Mandela.
- The show will be hosted by American actor and writer, Anthony Anderson. Anderson co-hosted the recently held BET awards in Los Angeles, California and plays lead in the ABC’s ‘Black-ish’ series.
- For the first time since the awards began five years ago, there is an Evolution Category, which will reward the act that has made the most impact in the past ten years. Votes for this category will be done via social.
- International superstars, Ne-Yo, Young Thug and Jhene Aiiko will be performing at the awards alongside African superstars, 2face Idibia, Davido, Yemi Alade, Toofan.
- Popular US acts, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Big Sean have been nominated in the Best International Act category and well, they just might attend.
- This year’s awards has Nigerian artistes including Davido, P Square, Yemi Alade, Wizkid and others dominating 12 of the 15 award categories.
- The awards will be televised live across Africa on MTV Base channel 322, MTV channel 130 and BET channel 129.