All Africa Music Awards, AFRIMA, together with the African Union Commission, AUC, has awarded Lagos State, Nigeria, the hosting rights to hold the 2025 edition of the prestigious award.
The grand finale of the award ceremonies is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Africa’s largest city, from 25 to 30 November 2025, while the entry submission portal opens on 27 May 2025.
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AFRIMA revealed that the 2025 edition of the award ceremony, themed ‘Unstoppable Africa,’ will be held on Tuesday at the 2025 AFRIMA Music Conference at AFRIMA’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
AFRIMA is an annual event that rewards and celebrates musical works, talents, and creativity across Africa.
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It serves as a platform to promote African cultural heritage through music, and its inaugural award show was held in 2014. The event was founded by the International Committee of AFRIMA, in collaboration with the African Union (AU).
The 2025 AFRIMA is expected to welcome leading and budding African music superstars, creative industry professionals, international media, members of the diplomatic corps and fans of African music from around the world.
At the conference briefing in Addis Ababa, Angela Martins, Director for Social Development, Culture, and Sport at the African Union Commission, alongside Janet Hadadi, a Moroccan music distributor and publisher active in North Africa and the Middle East, announced Lagos as the host city for the 2025 AFRIMA.
Mrs Martins cited Lagos’ strong track record as proof that the state is well-equipped to deliver a world-class event.
AFRIMA 2025 will feature over 1,600 nominees, including their teams, 60,000 visitors, and delegates. The event will also feature more than 2,300 production crew members and an audience of over 400 million viewers globally during the live broadcast.
Music Entry Submission Portal
Also, at the 2025 AFRIMA Music Conference, the AFRIMA committee and AUC announced that the official portal for entry submission will open from 27 May to 8 August 2025.
Moreover, the committee encouraged artists, producers, songwriters, and other music professionals across the continent and diaspora to submit their works via the AFRIMA digital portal, www.afrima.org.
The music conference featured panel sessions with conversations that centred around the future of African music in the world.
During the sessions, other critical aspects of African music were also discussed, such as monetisation, skill acquisition and knowledge sharing, intellectual property regimes, royalty and collecting society, leveraging the intersection between technology, AI, IOT, and media, music beyond borders, and sustaining global collaborations.
AFRIMA 2025 edition’s calendar details
According to the 2025 AFRIMA Music Conference, a series of major events, including country and city tours, will precede the main awards ceremony.
The #RoadToAFRIMA2025 Tour will energise cities across Africa and the diaspora. It will kick off in Morocco, then continue to Tanzania, Paris, Côte d’Ivoire, and London.
The tour will return to Nigeria in Delta State before culminating in Namibia from October 31 to 1 November 2025.
Additionally, the adjudication process will be held from 12 to 19 August, the World Media Conference, a platform that will announce the AFRIMA 2025 nominees and provide insights into the selection process, is scheduled for 27 August, and public voting will open on 5 September and close on 28 November, 2025.
The celebration will peak during the AFRIMA 2025 Awards Week from November 25 to 30.
More so, the Opening Soirée is scheduled for 26 November 2025, the Africa Music Business Summit is scheduled for 27-28 November 2025, and Music Icons’ Night will be held on 27 November 2025.
The event also plans to visit the school, the AFRIMA Music Village/Festival, the Host City Tour, and the Luncheon Reception on 28 November 2025. Then, the Nominees and Industry Party will follow, ending with the Main Awards Ceremony on 30 November 2025.
The event will be live broadcast on 109 stations in 84 countries worldwide.
