Rules

Common Rules

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As mentioned in the introduction, the primary “laureates” are designated, non as the “best” in each category, but rather as people the organisations freely wish to see embody the category, for their own and subjective reasons.

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Consequently, the laureate designated by the local professional organisations in each category can be of any genre, gender, age; she or he could be a newcomer or a veteran: this, as well as how the organisations choose to proceed for designation, is entirely up to the organisations. In that, the Academy is willing to show full respect for each local rules, customs and culture.

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In case, for a given category, the relevant organisations would be unable to designate a laureate (absence of organisations, absence of consensus, etc), the decision power would be granted to any pre-existing institute or event (CMO, price, festival, etc) consensually viewed as legitimate, so the voice of the main actors in the category can be reflected.

3-Stage process

The 3-stage process goes as follows:

Professional organisations in each country designate 1 laureate per category (for a total of 6 national laureates per country in 2024).
In turn, the national laureates elect the regional laureates (for a total of 6 regional laureates per region). This voting is online.
Finally, the regional laureates elect the global laureates (for a total of 6 global laureates). This voting is online too.

Online voting

Online voting is achieved by freely rearranging the submitted list of candidates (excluding the name of the voter), in preference order, allowing the number of points to be mechanically allocated in decreasing order, so:

Voters cannot vote for themselves
The top preferred candidate receives a number of points equal to the number of candidates in the list
The least preferred candidate reveives one point
Based on the cumulated number of points per candidate, the win list is best at reflecting the overall regional or global decision in one go
In case of no vote in a category, that category is dismissed from the results.
Non-voters are dismissed from the results (preventing a non-voter to win).

Each line of the list is to display, per candidate:

The name
The gender
The prevailing genre
The number of past runs
The number of past wins

Selecting a line in the list triggers, underneath the list, the display of:

The selected candidate’s photograph
His/her short biography
Up to 3 links towards his/her major works.

Ex-aequos resolving system

Seeking to ensure the best balance possible between all the differents parties in african music, the Academy is applying an automatic exaequo resolving system, mainly based on the history of past sessions, and hierarchically articulated as follows, in all transparency:

The least decorated candidate in the category is favored or, if none,
The candidate of the least represented country in the category is favored or, if none,
The candidate of the least represented gender in the category is favored or, if none,
The oldest candidate in the category is favored or, if none,
The candidate of the smallest notes amplitude in the category is favored.

Requested documents

The professional organisations are to send to the Academy, for each of their laureates:

The full name (and pseudo if any)
The age
The gender
The prevailing genre
The cell number (and the email address if any)
A photograph.
A short biography (max 3000 characters)
Up to 3 links towards the laureates most representative works found online

Annual agenda

The professional organisations are to designate their national laureates and send the requested documents per laureate to the Academy by March 31st of each year.

Regional online voting is done between April 15th and April 30th of each year.

Regional prize list is announced by May 15th of each year, and constitutes the “regional candidates” de-facto list for final voting.

Global online voting is done between June 1st and June 15th of each year.

Global prize list is announced by June 20th of each year.

Awards Ceremony

In lieu of a single grand awards ceremony:

The regional and global prize lists are announced at a press conference held at a prestigious venue.
All prize lists are announced via press releases in mainstream media and social networks.
The list of the laureates and this of the designating organizations are displayed on the Academy’s website.
Trophies are then handed to the laureates at events held wherever they live or work (concerts, festivals, parties, etc) by local personnalities or academy members, throughout the rest of year.

Automatic Membership

All local laureates become Academy members de facto, within the college relevant to their catagories, providing they have participated to the regional voting. They are then granted one voting voice each during the General Assembly.

Regional laureates are granted 8 voting voices each during the General Assembly.

Global laureates become members of the Honorary Committee, and are granted 16 voting voices each during the General Assembly.

OTHER EXCERPTS FROM THE RULES

In case of double citizenship or multiple residency, the laureate must inform the designating organizations of the nationality and or residency of his choice.

One laureate may be designated in more than one category.

Based on the scope of its competence, a given organization may designate in more than one category.

Governance members and Founding members cannot be laureates.

Laureate designation is performed by the organization via an online form , the link of which they receive from the Academy’s local delegates. They may fill the form as many times as desired, only the last version of which being taken into account.

Designating organizations become de facto “Partner Organizations” of the Academy.

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