The organizers of one of Nigeria’s most anticipated annual music awards, The Headies (Hip Hop World Awards), have announced that the nominees for the 2011 edition will be published on August 2.

According to the Producer of the Awards, Ayo Animashaun, “The awards preparation has started in earnest and a lot of things will be different this year. I’m so excited and I honestly cannot wait to see how things will unfold.”

After about three months of intensive deliberation and cross-examinations of music talents and their works under various nomination categories, the Headies nomination committee – a committee which includes music professionals and veterans of reputable pedigree, a comprehensive nomination list has been presented.

However, something new has also been introduced to the nomination list this year. Away from the norm of 20 nomination categories, the Organizers have included another category called “Best Conscious Music” in the usual bid to further promote and celebrate local music talents in a highly competitive industry. On this note, Ayo Animashaun had this to say,

“This is to reward best positive message and social corrective songs in the year in review. We thought it was overdue and there cannot be a better time than now especially with a lot of lewd lyrics and songs that hardly make any meaning. We recognise that music as an act is expressive of the state of mind, but we thought it was necessary to introduce this category giving the peculiar environment in which we operate.”

The Nominees list will be released on the official Headies website, HipTV channel 9 on HITV and on the partnering urban Lagos radio station, The Beat 99.9FM. Voting this year according to organizers would be by SMS and online; the former will influence 65% while the latter will influence the other 35% of voting results. According to Ayo Animashaun, these voting methods were adopted scientific approaches to reinforce transparency and objectivity in collating votes for each category, keeping in mind the possibility of dubious maneuvering by external factors.