Considered the "Africa Grammys", the All Africa Music Awards Festival (Afirma, in the acronym in English) registered 8880 entries and features artists from 50 African countries in the five regions of Africa, in addition to 10 countries in the United States from America and Europe, including Portugal.
Regarding the award for best female artist, among the nominees are four from Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP): Anna Joyce (Angola), Edmázia Mayembe (Angola), Pérola (Angola) and Soraia Ramos (Cape Verde).
The nominees for best male artist, from Portuguese-speaking countries, are C4 (Angola), Calema (São Tomé and Príncipe), Rui Orlando (Angola), Djodje (Cape Verde) and Nelson Freitas (Cape Verde).
Regarding the category of best African artist in the diaspora, Nelson Freitas is nominated for his connection between Cape Verde and Portugal.
According to the organizers of the event, of the 8880 entries registered for this year's festival, the West African region leads (30.4 percent), followed by East Africa (28.8 percent), and Southern Africa (22, 9 percent), Central Africa (12.3 percent), North Africa (4.9 percent) and international artists (0.7 percent).
The nominations are spread across 40 regional and continental award categories, which will be known as early as November.
