Bernice Ansah
Organizers of the annual Ghana Urban Gospel Music Awards (GUGMA) have officially launched this year’s edition of the event in Accra on the premises of KFM TV.
The launch was attended by a number of personalities including musicians, music producers, sound engineers and a section of the stakeholders in the music industry, bloggers as well as some of the previous award winners.
This year’s event has 26 categories including artiste of the year, most popular song of the year, best new artiste of the year, music video of the year among others.
The organizers have added three new categories; event of the year, diaspora artiste of the year and artiste manager of the year.
They said only works released between January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 can be entered.
The launch ceremony was used to officially unveil the website, www.gugmawards.com, for the awards scheme.
Speaking at the launch, Mr Richard Higher Pongo, Chief Executive Officer of GGRM announced that 31 awards would be giving out on the night.
He revealed that the awards scheme was instituted to market and promote Ghanaian gospel music especially urban gospel on the world music market.
He mentioned that the awards, which would be held in May, was being organized to reward deserving artistes for their hard work, dedication and contribution to the progress of Ghana’s urban gospel music industry.
According to him, this year’s edition is expected to attract a large number of stakeholders, including international artistes and their managers from all over Africa and the Diaspora.
Interested stakeholders are encouraged to download nomination forms from www.gugmawards.com.