Activities leading up to the Ghana Music Awards Festival 2011 are well under with the successful completion of the Brainstorming and Categorisation Committee meeting. The meeting witnessed highly spirited discussion between some notable members of the growing entertainment industry in Ghana who had valuable opinions to share on the GMAs.

The highly energetic meeting was attended by big names in the industry  like Panji Anoff, Nana Kwaku Osei (Nacy), Appietus, Ahmed Banda (Bandex), Akuba Quarmine of GTV, K K Kabobo, David Kyei (Kaywa), Fifi Folson, Ernest Kwesi Ennin, Dj Mensa and Nana Kwame O Sarpong among many others.

The Planning Committee of the GMA was also in full attendance while the Rev. Micheal Ohene-Okantah of the University of Education Winneba, represented the school of music where so many musical talents are nursed yearly.

The Agenda for the discussion was simple; discuss the developments in the music industry over the last year with reference to the awards, examine the awards categories and finally to categorize the entries into the various categories.

This agenda engaged the professionals from about 11 AM when the meeting began till about 3 PM when the Committee finally moved to have lunch and to continue further discussions in close quarters. As part of the discussion some new categories were suggested.

Notable among the suggestions were The Best Performer of the Year, Best Ghanaian Artistes in the Diaspora and the Engineer of the Year. One conclusion that was drawn in all the discussion was that although all the members of the various Committees of the GMA are drawn from the industry itself, it was the only way to ensure the scheme works well.

A call was therefore made to everyone who was invited to join in the decision making process of the scheme to attach seriousness to their responsibility and be diligent and as dispassionate as possible. However, all efforts will be made to exclude industry practitioners associated with works in contention, from all the various voting committees.

The data collected from the categorizations processes will be compiled and presented to the Planning Committee when it meets on Wednesday January 26, 2011 to discuss the processes so far and to begin work on cutting down the nominees to size.

It is important to note that one of the Planning Committee’s main responsibilities is to complete categorization of the Public Categories which are mainly based on popularity like the Song Categories, the Artistes Categories and the Album Categories.

This Committee also generates and vets the entries into the Industry Categories which are not based so much on popularity, such as the Instrumentalist, Record of the Year, Male and Female Vocal performance and Producer of the Year etc.

The current list of categories in the GMA 2011 scheme is:

Public Category

Artiste(s) of the Year

Hiplife/Hip Hop Artiste(s) of the Year

Highlife Artiste(s) of the Year

Gospel Artiste(s) of the Year

Discovery of the Year

Best Collaboration of the year

African Artiste(s) of the Year

Hiplife Song of the Year

Highlife song of the Year

Most Popular Song of the Year

Afro-Pop Song of the Year

Hip Hop Song of the Year

Gospel Song of the year

Reggae Song of the Year,

Best Rapper of the year.

The Industry categories are:

Album of the Year

Best Male vocal performance (Solo/Group)

Female vocal performance (Solo/Group)

Best Music Video of the Year

Songwriter of the Year

Record Label of the Year

Producer of the Year

Traditional Artiste(s) of the Year

Record of the Year

Instrumentalist of the Year

MUSIGA Merit of the Year

Any further changes made to these categories will be communicated subsequently.

Meanwhile a special call is being sent out for entries into the Music for Development sponsored by the World Bank. All entries for this category must reach the Charterhouse before 7^th February to allow the committee ample time to work on the entries.