The much-talked about Voice Independent Music Awards (VIMA) 2010 will kick off tomorrow (Jan 17) at MIST Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur.
The awards night is expected to draw a guest list of more than 400 celebrities amongst its 800 exclusively invited guests. There will be 50 awards given out in 22 categories and there will be seven performances from Malaysian Indie acts and two performances from Brunei acts.
Founder of VIMA and AVIMA, Siva Chandran revealed this during an exclusive interview with the Weekend Bulletin.
“Now in its second year, VIMA has truly become an international brand. It so happened that one night, while I was on Facebook, I came across a plea from Rita Aggraeni asking more people to support Brunei artistes and music.
“I immediately contacted her and began a series of discussions to allow Bruneian acts to be part of VIMA,” said Siva, who is also the Managing Editor of an Asian lifestyle and entertainment site, www.voize.my
The Bruneian artistes that will be showcasing Brunei’s music talent on Malaysian soil are rock band ‘Karacoma’ and pop idols Juju and Adi Rani.
“Siva actually asked us to perform and it is quite a privilege for us,” said the band members. When asked what songs they will be performing, they said “We haven’t decided yet. But we have been practising a few potential songs. Let’s just wait till the actual night!”
The band is nominated in five categories: Best Rock Group, Best Rock Song: IKTS, Best Rock Vocalist: Sam Siren (Karacoma), Best Female Vocalist (Over-All) and Best Guitar “Goreng” Riff for the song Paranoia. This will be the first time the band will be performing outside Brunei.
“It is just surreal to be able to perform at VIMA 2010,” said Adi Rani, who is nominated for Best Pop Song: Sudah enough and Best Pop Vocalist.
Same goes to Juju who said, “Its nerve-racking! I’ve never been nominated for an international award and this would be the first time I’ll be performing internationally”. Juju is nominated for Best Pop Song: Remember and Smoothest R&B Act for VIMA 2010.
Both Adi Rani and Juju are artistes from Projectunes Records, an independent music production record label based in Brunei and run by Bruneians.
Adi Rani is expected to perform a remake of one of his own songs, whereas Juju is practising a ‘mashed-up’ of her currents hits for their limelight performance during the award night.
Also nominated in the same category (Best Pop) is our very own Feez Madea with her latest hit song ‘Fly’. “I feel happy and blessed. To be nominated is quite a big achievement for me. This is the first nomination I’ve received outside the country,” she said.
Preparations began almost three months ago by using popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to drive this unique award. “I do believe someday VIMA will be a marketing case study over how we keep pulling this off with such low budget but maximum mileage,” said Siva.
He said that when VIMA 2009 was launched, it was Asia’s first Indie music awards. “Our philosophy is to champion talents, and we open up nominations even to garage bands, bedroom DJs and even song demos!”
VIMA 2010 is already a huge success even before the awards night simply from its amazing ability to draw a huge amount of big media and partners.
It has already drawn global names like AXN and ANIMAX, and also has top-notch companies like 8TV, the Sun (popular Malaysian newspaper) and Hitz.fm (No 1 radio station).
Today, so many people not only in Asia but also across the world know about the VIMA nominees from Brunei. “Personally, I really think many Brunei acts are truly talented, and just need the right platform to push their music,” he added.
Winners of VIMA will not only get international recognition but also gain automatic entry for the AVIMA 2010 (Asian Voice Independent Music Awards) awards coming in April this year. AVIMA showcases Asia’s finest Indie acts from India, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Middle East, Kazakhstan, Korea and Indonesia, and of course the three countries from VIMA.
Amongst the local artistes nominated in the individual categories are Feez Madea, Adi Rani, Juju, NJ and Sam Siren from Karacoma. In the group categories are MNC, Mic Bandits, L One, I Mean the Snakes, Karacoma, Megabu and the White Shoes as well as D’Hask.
A total of 30 per cent of the votes/scores is derived from the official site, whereas the other 70 per cent come from local and international judges.
“I truly hope to see more Brunei corporations support their local acts in the near future We are also hoping to get a stronger sense of camaraderie between Malaysian and Brunei Indie acts after the awards show and look forward to more collaborations.”
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