KOKO Asia News

VIMA 2010 Press Release to VIMA 2010 Nominations Announced

Date: 1 December 2009
By The KOKO Asia News Team

Kuala Lumpur, November 30 - The VIMA 2010 nominee list was revealed last night after 3 months of hype, and once again, produced a big bag of surprises.

The 2nd annual Malaysian Independent music awards brought together a strange flock of bedroom DJ’s, college acts, indie superstars, genre bending collaborations and even independent acts of different nationalities.

Last year’s big winner, hip-hopper Altimet, and rising R&B act James Baum both bagged 6 nominations each. But even they were outshined by the rockers, Deja Voodoo Spells, who led the field with 9 nominations including their role as part of the indie supergroup, The M.A.D project, featuring Melissa Indot on vocals and Altimet providing the rap bits. Also, award winning Indie acts, Bunkface and Hujan managed to be nominated in the Best Rock song and Best rock group categories.

“VIMA is like the alternate universe for music awards. It’s a platform where rules are often bent and broken, and where the spirit of creativity and true talent is fleshed out. Its an award show like no other, with eccentric awards title (Best Song To Play At Camp Fire and To Do Away With Monday Morning Blues, Most Mindboggling Genre Bender), an informal awards event where anything goes and it doesn’t matter what race, nationality or language package the independent acts come in. It’s a place where formal criteria is booted out and everyone is united by one common passion – MUSIC! That’s why the music awards has garnered so much interest globally ” said Siva Chandran, Managing Editor of Voize.my and the founder of VIMA.

“We are stunned by the list of nominees, and this time we even have an eclectic showcase of acts who hail from Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and artistes singing in Chinese and Tamil notching nominations in the major categories. Take the song “Ore Malaysia” by MK, a Tamil pop anthem sung by a Malay (Atilia) and Chinese (Calvin) artiste. Or a relatively unknown act, Neuyabe, who produce experimental tracks in similar vein of Radiohead but sing in Chinese? And we were blown away by the amazing multiracial-multicultural act, Akasha, who create music by fusing Indian,Chinese, Malay and Western elements, including African,Celtic, Latin and Cuban Jazz. In a way, VIMA 2010 has brought the world to our doorstep” added Siva.

The nominees for VIMA 2010 will now enter the second stage of judging of which 30% of the scores will be determined by a public voting poll and 70% of the remaining score determined by in judges comprising celebrities, media, industry experts and selected home based judges from the general public.The public voting poll will be launched on December 3rd, 2010 and can be accessed from the microsite at www.voize.my.

Also unveiled in the list were the 7 new inductees into the VIMA 2010 Independent Music Hall Of Fame – Dato Sri Shazalli Ramly, Paul Moss, Jasmine Low, Issa Rodriguez, Too Phat, Clair Vanessa Rozells and Junk Magazine. The Hall of Fame awards are given out to individuals and media who have played a vital role in supporting and championing the independent music scene over the many years. Previous inductees include Ahmad Izham Omar, Jake Abdullah, Jason Lo and OAG.

VIMA 2010 is organized by Voize.my, a leading Asian lifestyle and entertainment website. The awards is expected to be held on January 17th 2010 at a soon to be announced venue. VIMA 2010 is supported by POP TV, 8TV, Hitz.fm, X fm, The Sun, Newman Magazine, Cleo Magazine, Stage Magazine, Yeah Magazine, Malaysian Today, TIS, Joomcool,com, Kokoasia, Friedchillies.com, Arcis communications, Bimbit.com, Malaysiakini and Youth Entrepreneurs of Malaysia (YEM).

Winners of the major categories of VIMA 2010 also gain automatic qualification to the Asia-Pacific Independent Music awards, AVIMA 2010. AVIMA is dubbed as The World’s Biggest Independent Music awards in the world and is expected to attract more than 3000 independent acts from 25 countries including Australia and New Zealand.