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Mthabisi Tshuma/Wayne Chiridza, Showbiz Reporters

THE Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) will be held tonight at a red carpet ceremony at Newlands Country Club in Harare from 6pm.

The awards come after a four-year sabbatical and it remains to be seen if they will live up to their billing.

After the nominees were unveiled last week, there were mixed feelings from fans with some saying some of the artistes were not deserving while others said the list left out some deserving artistes.

Zima chief executive officer Reason Sibanda has however said all the nominees who were shortlisted deserve to be part of this year’s awards. 

Sibanda said what people need to know is that only those who submitted their works were adjudged so some of the artistes that are said to have been left out probably did not submit their works.

Some fans have complained that some categories like best choreographer had been left out this year which Sibanda said will be addressed in future.

“We wanted to get the main awards ceremony right first before expanding it to include more categories.

“What’s important is to get it right so that the awards are credible and speak to the musicians,” he said.

For this year’s ceremony, every winner has been assured of walking away with a prize unlike what has been happening in the past.

“The gongs are there, that was the first thing that we sorted out. We realised that we can’t have a situation where people exchange four gongs during the ceremony so we secured 32 gongs for all categories,” said Sibanda.

The vision of the awards, Sibanda said, is to raise the level of the country’s music.

“We’d like to match awards such as MTV, Nigerian Awards and some international music awards,” he said.

Meanwhile, the voting line for the Zima Song of the Year is still open and will close just before the start of the show at about 6PM. — @mthabisi_mthire/@waynecas