The All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) and the African Union Commission are set to bring 2014 to a close with a show-stopping awards ceremony scheduled to hold on Saturday, December 27, at the prestigious Grand Ballroom, Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

In partnership with the African Union Commission, AUC, AFRIMA will be rewarding excellence in the continental music and media industry at the main awards ceremony.

Preceding the ceremony will be the African Music Summit themed “Reviving the Business of Music in Africa” slated for the morning of Saturday, December 27, at the Oriental Hotel.

The Summit is a platform for African and global music industry stakeholders to network and deliberate on how the music industry can be nurtured and structured to be a major contributor to national and continental economies.

For the 2014 edition, the award project opened entry submission in 31 categories on May 15 and closed the submission of entries on July 21 in the process receiving a staggering total of 2,025 works for assessment submitted by African music industry artistes, professionals and journalists.

The AFRIMA nominees list unveiling occurred in Lagos, Nigeria on Tuesday, September 23 amidst world media fanfare, with popular African music names jostling alongside emerging music forces for space on the list.

The Public and AFRIMA Academy voting began on the AFRIMA www.afrima.org on September 30 and expected to end on November 4. However, public voting was further extended by three weeks only ending on Tuesday, November 25, thereby allowing African music fans and followers more time to vote for their favourite artistes.

In the course of the invite-only award ceremony night, more than 30 of AFRIMA’s 23.9-carat gold-plated trophies will be received by music acts or groups in their respective categories.

The trophy recipients will also include an AFRIMA Legend Awardee and the African Entertainment/Music Journalist of the year. To spice up the proceedings will be sizzling performances from some of Africa’s top performing artistes and bands.

“There is so much excitement in store for guests who attend the both the Africa Music Summit and AFRIMA main award ceremony. The Summit provides ample opportunity for robust and strategic deliberations on developing the African music industry to compete with the better developed industries around the globe”, stresses Delani Makhalima, AFRIMA Juror from Zimbabwe.

Mr. Makhalima also states: “When we are done with the vital intellectual aspect of the event calendar, all attention turns to the glamourous, star-studded, cultural concept award ceremony for a fitting finale to the last weekend in 2014. AFRIMA is eager to welcome our African music stars from within and outside the continent, officials of the African Union Commission, members of the International Committee of AFRIMA and special guests”.

Although committed to delivering a world-class 2014 award event, the International Committee of AFRIMA reveals that part of the ceremony’s programme will pay tribute to lives affected by the scourge of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in some West African states and terrorist insurgency in Northern Nigeria, Somalia and part of Kenya - both disturbing trends had necessitated the rescheduling of the award ceremony.