After the widely publicised fiasco around the sudden cancellation of the South African Music Awards (SAMAs), which were due to be held in Durban, the awards are now back and set to take place on Saturday at the SunBet Arena at Time Square, Menlyn Maine.
Drama aside, this year’s SAMAs are serving up plenty of tasty match-ups in various nomination categories.
Whether it’s Album of the Year, Duo/Group of the Year or Best Amapiano Album, there’s no telling who will come out on top in the various categories.
Overall, rapper AKA leads the pack with six nominations across the categories Male Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Engineered Album, Best Collaboration (twice for ‘Company’ and ‘Lemons’) and Best Produced Music Video.
Skhandaworld star K.O follows close behind with five nominations thanks to his platinum-selling album ‘SR3’ and the huge hit single ‘Sete’ featuring Young Stunna and Blxckie.
The 43-year-old is nominated in the categories of Male Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Collaboration, Best Produced Music Video and Remix of the Year.
The runaway success of ‘Sete’ makes K.O a favourite in a number of these categories, and he should be a shoo-in for Best Collaboration.
The hotly contested Male Artist of the Year category could go either way with AKA, K.O, Sjava, Lloyiso and Kabza De Small all having a solid case for the award.
Amapiano pioneer Kabza De Small has four solo nominations, as well as two more as part of the Scorpion Kings duo alongside DJ Maphorisa.
Kabza’s ‘KOA II Part 1’ was arguably the most impressive body of work in his sprawling catalogue and the most cohesive amapiano project of the past year.
Featuring the likes of Msaki, Young Stunna, Daliwonga and Ami Faku, it also packed plenty of star power.
Over the past week, the SAMAs have announced that Grammy Award winners Zakes Bantwini, Nomcebo Zikode and Wouter Kellerman will be honoured with the International Achievement Award.
They also shared that DJ Sabby and Nomalanga Shozi will host the awards, which will be broadcast on SABC 1.