Zimbabwe Music Awards (ZIMA) Back after a long absence

The Zimbabwe Music Awards (ZIMA), the country’s own version of the glitzy American Grammys, have roared back into life after four years of inactivity blamed on economic hard times. The awards will now be held on a date to be disclosed soon but the organizers hinted the event would possibly be as soon as January, 2012. 
“Hard times hit us badly and ZIMA went underground but now we are back with more formidable and affordable awards,” ZIMA chairperson Joseph Nyadzayo told journalists at a press briefing. “We have been quietly consulting corporate sponsors and other stakeholders and pleased to announce that ZIMA is back on track.” 

The return of ZIMA is good news for musicians especially the young artists who jostle for recognition and honour and have always used the awards as a platform to uplift their careers. 

But even the more seasoned musicians, too, have used the awards to claim their places in the sector and consolidate the gains in popularity and record sales. 

Alick Macheso, Tongai Moyo, Oliver Mtukudzi, Jays Marabi and many other celebrity musicians are past ZIMA award winners. The demise of ZIMA for four years meant Zimbabwe did not have awards that exclusively honoured musicians. The National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) that are organised by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe honour diverse art forms and not entirely music.

While ZIMA is a prestigious event it has not been spared the controversies of the arts sector.

The awards were in the past blasted by artists from Matabeleland regions who felt that ZIMA marginalized them by restricting music categories mostly to genres rooted in shona. 

ZIMA accepted the criticism and introduced more categories to cater for diverse music genres from Matabeleland. At one stage ZIMA even planned to host the awards in Bulawayo but the costs of transporting, accommodating and feeding the nominees, who live outside Bulawayo, were prohibitive.