Open letter to MR Nathi Mthethwa – The Mzansi Kwaito House Music Awards note with great disappointment and disapproval, the unfair treatment it has been subjected to by the National Department of Arts and Culture.
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The organisation has for the past 3 years invested efforts in attempting to secure funding for the Annual Mzansi Kwaito and House Music Awards. These tireless efforts have yielded nothing but constant rejection from the DAC. Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s department has continuously demonstrated by all means possible lack of interest towards supporting the awards.
What seem to be of great concern from our end, is the ignorance towards our efforts to promote social cohesion and giving recognition to what has historically manifested a unique South Africa’s cultural genre and discipline.
We have come to the realization that the department favours the South African Music Awards and new USIBA awards over the MKHMA, as they have cited the rejection on the basis that they are already supporting the SAMA’s. However we are of a belief that our focus remains different from that of the SAMA’s and other music oriented awards in South Africa.
This rejection has also come to suggest that women led initiatives are not worthy of the support afforded to those led by men, a stance that we believe seek to discriminate on the basis of gender and sex. We would like to remind Mr Mthethwa that the constitution of this country is explicit on the recognition and protection of all who live in South Africa.