2016 UMP Awards: Nominees line up complete: Tay Grin and Gwamba bag four nominations

…Mwini Zinthu in Song of the Year race

A catchy line up of artists and brains in various fields have made it to the list of nominees in all the 12 categories of the  much anticipated Urban Music Party (UMP) music awards.

The nominees were named yesterday at a party held at the Club Amazon in the capital Lilongwe.

Topping the list is Gwamba and Tay Grin. They both have four nominations.

Gwamba comes on the race for the Best Gospel Artist, Best Hiphop artist, Artist of the Year and has his song Better in contention for the Song of the Year award.

Tay Grin is nominated for the Best Hiphop artist,  Artist of the Year and has his song Chipapa in two categories of Music Video of the Year and Song of the Year.

The controversial Mwini Zinthu hit has also made it to the list of songs under the Song of the Year category. Artists Blaze and Ril B have been in a series of verbal war over who owns the song.

Talking of Ril B, he has made it to the Best New Artist category, a nomination he is scrambling to attain from the competition of Charisma, JJC, Kevin Sings and Purple C.

Maiden appearances to the nominations this year are from Blaze who is on the Song of the Year category and has his name on Song of the Year Mwini Zinthu as well as Best R&B/Afro-pop Act.

Zani Challe is another maiden name with her a song, Single Tonight that featured Nigerian Patoranking on the Music Video of the Year and she has headed to the Best Female Act, a category she faces off with Aycee James, Beanca, Rina and Sangie.

Other maiden artists this time around are Kell kay for Best R&B/Afro-pop Act among others, Purple C for Best Dancehall Artist and Best New Artist.

Fredokiss, Gwamba, Martse, Phyzix and Tay Grin square off for the battle in the Best Hip Hop/Rap Act category.

The Best R&B/Afro-pop Act has seen the names of Blaze, Bucci, Dan Lu, Kell Kay, Theo Thomson.

The nominations also see Faith Mussa, Gwamba, KBG, Patience Namadingo, Suffix hitting the category of Best Gospel Artist.

The final voting will commence on Wednesday 5 October and conclude Thursday 3 November 2016, with the objective of selecting the final winner per category. The public will send SMS texts to designated numbers on Airtel and/or TNM mobile networks: 1 SMS / 1 Category Vote.

The judges and the public votes will be weighed and they will respectively contribute 30:70 of the final vote.

The final results will be compiled by the UMP Festival executive team together with a representative of the judges and the winners announced on 6 November at the BAT Ground.

To vote, members of the general public can send SMS texts to designated numbers on Airtel and TNM mobile networks (0994299099 and 0880549556): 1 SMS / 1 Category Vote.

HERES THE ENTIRE NOMINATIONS LIST