Second NAMAS international judge

The Executive Committee of the Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMA’s) has revealed the second international judge in a long list of judges comprising both local and international judges. Babafemi Olagbaiye is currently the CEO of ONE Music Networks Limited, one of the biggest music broadcasting companies in Nigeria. Olagbaiye started One Music Networks in 2010 in Nigeria from scratch and today broadcasts to 15 countries. In less than three years, One Music Networks has become a million dollar company. He was previously the Operations and Brand Manager West Africa of MTV Networks Africa. As Operations Manager he executed some of the biggest initiatives of MTV Networks Africa including the MAMA awards. Executive Committee member, Tim Ekandjo said that more judges will be revealed soon. “We are making a concerted effort to get the best of the best on the judging panel, from both Namibia and from the African continent. We will have Namibian judges on the panel as usual and we will also as part of this process reveal their identities in the same manner”. Ekandjo stressed that their decision to include international judges does not mean that the local judges are not good enough as reports claimed, but that their presence allows Namibian music the perfect marketing platform outside of Namibia and allowing Namibian music to make the breakthrough into the African continent. He said the international judges will specialize in judging certain categories only because “we need to be mindful that some of them might not understand our traditional Namibian categories, and that is why we strike a fine balance between local and international judges.”The third NAMA judge will be revealed next week.