Kampala — Our show biz industry is really going places. Gone are the days when we admired scenes from Hollywood, craved to rub shoulders with celebrities and even be part of a music award ceremony similar to the American Grammy's.

We are not talking about the upcoming red carpet Miss Uganda event. Something else is knocking at the door. On October 4, Uganda will witness the very first national music award ceremony.

Dubbed the Pearl of Africa Music (PAM) Awards, the event will see our local artistes from 23 categories win among other things, a recording contract as well as a slot into the African Kora Awards later in the year. The awards ceremony will be held at Speke Resort Munyonyo.

The categories include hip-hop, contemporary, Gospel, cultural, mataali, kadongo kamu, and ragga, R&B and live band. Others are best female and male artiste as well as audio producer, video and lifetime achievement award. There will be four nominees in each category and South African music TV station Channel 'O' will be here to film the event.

The event is meant to act as a mechanism to create a trend for the industry and designed to promote the industry to international standards, says Steven Kavuma, one of the organisers.

"Local musicians lack support. We need to support them," he says.

The artistes are already participating in filling in a vote form. The public too can vote through SMS while media houses will also fill out vote forms. All vote forms will be sent out to Ernest & Young, a reputable audit firm. The major sponsors for the event is Celtel Uganda.