Awards for World Music 2009

Around this time last year, the votes were being collected for the annual BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards. The awards, which were then in their seventh year, saw the likes of Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Sa Dingding and Son de la Frontera all winning some of the prestigious awards.



However, BBC Radio 3 have now announced that they are no longer running the awards and the fantastic world music magazine Songlines will be taking over instead.

In a statement on their website, Songlines have stated that ‘As the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music are no longer taking place, we felt it was important to try and continue the momentum that those awards achieved in spreading the word about great musical talent around the world.’

They will now have four categories;

Best Artist
Best Group
Best Cross-Cultural collaboration
Best Newcomer

The artists eligible for these awards will be those who have been reviewed in the Songlines magazine from the middle of 2008 until now.

According to the magazine, the first initial round of voting has finished and a shortlist of artists will be published in issue #59 (April/May 2009) a jury will then select the winners which will be announced in issue #60 (June 2009)

The awards will conclude with a live event at this years WOMAD taking place in Charlton Park July 24th-26th.