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Bongani Ndlovu Showbiz Correspondent
ORGANISERS of the Zimbabwe Music Awards have set February 25 as the date for the awards ceremony which will be held at the Harare International Conference Centre. The announcement on their Twitter account ended months of speculation on whether or not the ceremony will be held.

Organisers said an earlier announcement on social media had been premature as they had not put their house in order.

“Our person in charge of social media released the date too early. What I can say for now is that the awards are on February 25 at HICC. Further details about who is coming to receive the Lifetime achievement award for Bob Marley will be announced during the week along with the top 10 people choice award,” said Farai Chapoterera, the Zima spokesperson.

The delay was reportedly because the family of late reggae icon Bob Marley confronted organisers of the Zima for not engaging them in their plans to honour the legend with a Lifetime Achievement award.

Zima seemed to be waiting for a green light from the Marley family to go ahead with honouring their late father.

Also being honoured at the 2015 Zima edition is South Africa-based dancehall musician, Buffalo Souljah. The artiste, who had been on record as yearning for recognition, will finally be rewarded with an International Achiever award. Buffalo has continuously put Zimbabwe on the world map, scooping over five Channel O Music awards.

Locally, eight Bulawayo artistes and producers – Cal_Vin, TKP, MZoe 7, Defined House, KLAP, Skaiva, Nomathamsanqa “Nkwali” Mkhwananzi and Andy Cutta are in the running for various awards with most of them competing in the House music category.

In this category are TKP – Mhururu, DJ Skaiva – It’s Love, Squash – Ngikulindile, Defined House -Achimwemwe and J Dot – You Can’t Say So.

In the hip hop category Cal_Vin will be pitted against Trey XL, female rapper Trae Young, I Kat and hip hop stable KLAP.

Contemporary musician Jah Prayzah has the most nominations as he is up for Best Male Artiste, Best Collaboration with Ammara Brown for track Kure Kure, Best Traditional Album and Album of the year for Jerusarema.

Music video producer Andy Cutta has three nominations for Best Music Video for hit song Alleluya by Roki and XQ, Ndomira Pamuri by Janet Manyowa and I don’t Care When I’m in Love by Candy Main ft Clare.

He will be pitted against Joe Njagu for Selmor Mtukudzi’s Zvidikidiki music video.

There will likely be a fierce battle for supremacy in the Best Dancehall Music category with Killer T’s Ngoma Ndoimba, Tocky Vibes’ Toti Toti, Winky D’s Awuya Awuya, SoulJah Love’s 2015 Collection and Seh Calaz’s Bandit Rebirth vying for honours.