Malawi Islamic music and other artistic works are barely appreciated by the general populace because they are only exposed in the Islamic Community through Radio Islam and TV Islam — but the creative and artistic works are aplenty.
Muslim Artists Association has thus initiated annual Islamic Arts Awards to promote, honour, motivate and reward such creative works and to expose them to the Malawi populace’s appreciation.
The inaugural glamorous awards event is scheduled for December 23 at Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre, which shall be covered live on Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday, November 15 at Amaryllis Hotel.
Chairman of the awards’ organising committee, Tailos Bakili said the inaugural event is set to bring together community members since the awards shall highlight “the contribution which Muslim artists are making to the social, political and cultural landscape”.
Tailos Bakili and ZBS’ Emmanuel Maliro signing the MoU
“We want to celebrate artists who have inspired generations of Muslims with their positive messages and creations,” he said, adding that the 2022 Islamic Arts Awards “is very unique in the sense that we opened the awards to the general public to vote for their favorite artists.”
He indicated that the general public was given the chance to nominate their favourite artists in different categories from October 31 to November 5, whose list is now ready in following categories: Best Nasheed of the Year; Best Nasheed Artist of the Year; Best Nasheed Producer; Best Upcoming Artist; Best Collabo and Best Islamic Program (television and radio).
In drama, there is Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Upcoming Dramatist; Best Comedian and also on the menu is poetry as Best Poet; Best Poem and Best Upcoming Poet.
There is also room for Best Video and Best Video Producer and in additional to celebrating the hard work and achievements of the 2022 finalists, Bakili said they shall also launch three new categories to honour lifetime achievers in the Muslim community.
He further said nominees shall be unveiled on Sunday, November 20 and from there till December 11, “the general public shall again be given chance to vote for their favourite artists for the final gala night”.
The organising committee chairperson also announced that they have engaged KB Accounting & Auditing firm, “who are auditing the results to ensure that every step is represented fairly and accurately to reflect the wishes of the people”.
The Muslim Artists Association executive members
“The awards belong to the public and it is them who shall give us the winners. So, today is a great and very important day for the awards as the 2022 Islamic Arts Awards has taken another bold step by partnering with Zodiak Broadcasting Station.
“This partnership shall see ZBS airing promotional materials for the Islamic Arts Awards and to broadcast the event live,” Bakili said, adding that the partnership shall “surely guarantee Muslim artists and the awards a much greater audience.
“This partnership is raising the bar for the creative Muslim artists and it is yet another development, which is breathing a new life into the Islamic Arts Awards — a valuable tool for the growth and development of the Muslim arts sector.”
In his remarks, ZBS’ Controller of Commercial Affairs, Emmanuel Maliro said they were proud to partner with the Muslim Artists Association while seeing it as a lasting collaboration, saying the broadcasting station has programmes that promotes music and cultural arts — but they have never received Islamic content.
“The majority of Malawians don’t know that the Muslim community is rich with great and beautiful music and it’s time it got well exposed,” he said. “Most of the Islamic music content is played by Radio Islam and in my whole career at Zodiak, we never received such content.
“We appreciate your efforts to open up and expose and honour the Muslim artists because this is not just for the Muslim community, but for the whole country to appreciate the artistic works of Muslim musicians and other artists.
“Malawi is abundantly blessed with artistic creative minds but they lack the platform that can expose them. The Muslim artists were not being appreciated because that sector was working in a cocoon.
“But with the coming in of the Islamic Arts Awards and through this partnership, this sector will be well exposed because ZBS has a very wide audience — through television and the country’s number one radio.
“We have special programme for music, food and cultural activities and our live-streaming Facebook account has the largest visits every single day.”
Maliro also encouraged the corporate world to be proactive to partner and sponsor artists in their undertakings, saying in other countries such as South Africa, it is companies that approach musicians to promote their music video productions.
He thus emphasized that what Muslim Artists Association has done to initiate the Islamic Arts Awards and engage ZBS as a partner, is indeed a milestone to open up the Muslim music and its various artistic works.
When asked why it took so long for them to expose Muslim music and other artistic works, Bakili confessed that they indeed never considered it up until the artistic works scaled up and needed to be exposed to the wider market.
“This is a beginning and it has started off on a high note through this partnership with Zodiak,” he said.
ZBS also partnered with Alpha Arts to broadcast live the 2022 Miss Malawi pageant, which is scheduled for December 3 at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe.
There is also room for Best Video and Best Video Producer and in additional to celebrating the hard work and achievements of the 2022 finalists, Bakili said they shall also launch three new categories to honour lifetime achievers in the Muslim community.
