The Botswana Music Union (BOMU) has just launched the revamped Mascom-BOMU Music Awards for 2007. The most exciting thing is that a new emblem has been produced showing Mascom's long-term commitment to the growth of the local music industry. The company has also increased its sponsorship from P160, 000 to P250, 000. Government, through the Department of Culture, Youth and Sport has chipped in with P85, 000 sponsorship.
However, BOMU and the awards organisers face some challenges to improve on last year's awards. First of all, it must be determined who is eligible to enter the awards. In the first awards last year any artist registered with the organisation qualified. It is obviously the prerogative of the organisation to make membership a requirement to enter the awards for purposes of building a critical membership mass. However, this takes some sparkle from the awards since some of the country's top artists are not members and do not wish to join the union, but may wish to enter the awards.
