Awarding the Indies

Award functions in the country are plenty,but those that genuinely recognise the indie music scene,are close to none. So,Radio City recently conducted the first edition of their Freedom Awards in Mumbai,with an aim to “recognise,honour and celebrate the essence of independent music across genres.”

While the awards were announced in April,musicians were invited to send in entries across six “music genre based” and two “non-music genre based” categories,which included Best Hip-Hop/ Rap Artiste,Best Pop Artiste,Best Rock Artiste,Best Folk Fusion Artiste,Best Metal Artiste,Best Electronica Artiste,Best Video and Best Album Art. The event began with a performance by Mumbai-based musician Siddharth Basrur,followed by the awards for Best Album Art and Best Video. The former was given to Delhi metal act 1833 AD,for My Dark Symphony,and the latter to Bangalore funk band Live Banned,for The Auto Tune. Among the nominees that were selected over the various categories were Reggae Rajahs,Indus Creed,Dualist Inquiry,Thermal and a Quarter,Blakc,Siddharth Basrur and Spud in the Box. Ultimately,the jury chose Mumbai’s Vivek Rajagopalan,Kerala’s Chaos,Delhi’s Dualist Inquiry,Mumbai’s Indus Creed,Bangalore/Chennai trio Machas With Attitude and Mumbai-based Benny Dayal for folk fusion,metal,electronica,rock,hip-hop/rap and pop respectively.