Organisers of the annual Maso Awards have unveiled veteran musician Paul Banda and social media influencer Pemphero Mphande as recipients of the Maso Lifetime Achiever and Humanitarian awards at this year’s awards gala.

The event will be held on November 25 at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe.

One of the country’s producers: Banda

Addressing the press in Lilongwe on Thursday, Maso Awards chief executive officer Augustine Mukisi said the two will be awarded the accolades for the role they have played in society.

He said Banda will be awarded the lifetime achiever award for the role he has played in unearthing raw music talent as a producer and musician while Mphande will be accorded the humanitarian award for his philanthropic works which has seen him mobilising resources to bail out needy people.

“These two have contributed a lot to the society and we felt it wise to honour them at our fifth annual awards gala. We need to celebrate their achievements,” said Mukisi.

He further disclosed that while nominees in other categories will have to be voted for, Mphande and Banda will be awarded without any voting process as these awards are honorary.

Meanwhile the organisers have released a final list of nominees for their 32 voted for categories.

Mukisi said they received 50 000 nominations, but now that list of nominees has been trimmed to 137 with five nominees for each category.

“This year the response has been overwhelming as evidenced from the number of nominations we have received. Now that we have closed the nomination process, we would like to encourage people to start voting as voting runs from now to November 24,” he said.

Mukisi assured all arts enthusiasts that they have put in place strict mechanisms to ensure that the voting process is not tampered with.

“We have been staging these awards for four years and I want to assure all our fans that we will not disappoint as we are geared to give out the best so that only those deserving artists carry the day,” he said.

Reacting to the final shortlist, one of the shortlisted artists Malinga said he was excited to be among those that have made the final list.

Malinga, who has been nominated in three categories for his hit Song Arasi said the shortlisting symbolises the love he has over his fans.

“I’m super excited. Remember the nomination process involves fans out there so for me to make the final grade in three different categories is not a small achievement and all I can say is a big thank you to my fans,” said the artist.

Maso Awards is an annual awards gala ceremony which started in 2019 under Maso Enterprise with an aim of celebrating local art.

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