Roy van der Merwe,the head of the South African selection for the Afri music song contest spent most of yesterday writing individually to recording artists to tell them about the contest and ask them to enter. Several have responded with questions and here are the most common questions and we try to supply as detailed answers to them

Question – the three minute time rule – how strict will that be enforced?
Answer – the 3 minute rule applies for Eurovision for years and the idea is also to use it in Afri music but this is our first year and since it will not be a TV show but the contest (at least for the first year) will run on digital and mobile platforms, songs can be longer – so a song of 3.45 minutes will not be disqualified. We of course do not want a 9 minute long song. Use as guideline what radio stations require the ideal length of a song needs to be as obviously the idea of this song contest is to get the songs to be played on radio.

Question – in Eurovision there is a date like 1 September, and only songs available after that date is allowed. What is the date for Afri music
Answer – again the idea is that we want new recordings, but again as it is our first year, we have decided any song newer than 1 January 2017 will be used. yes you could have recorded the song 5 years ago, but if it only became commercially available after 1 January 2017, it is fine

Question – originally there were an entry fee – has that been scrapped?
Answer – yes, the original idea was to have an entry fee to make sure we get just serious artists entering, but since it is the first contest, we scrapped the fee and now an artist can enter up to three songs FREE. Even if we get 1000 entries, we will go through them all. So this is ideal for newcomers to see if they can impress the judges. Therefore take advantage of this and enter 3 songs as you got nothing to loose.

Question – Citizenship of the artists – what is the rule?
Answer – if it is a solo singer (male or female), he or she has to be a citizen of the country they are entering for. If it is a duo or group, just one member has to be a citizen of that country. This means in the case of a duo, if someone from Spain wants to team up with a singer from Ghana, he is free to enter for Ghana. This opens the door for European singers to team up with someone in an African country and help raise the profile of music in that country.

Question – Citizenship of the composers – what is the rule?
Answer – ideally again we would like the composers to be from the country they are writing for (in the case of original songs) but again for the first year, if just one of them is from that country, it is okay – so a good composer from SWEDEN can team up with a lyric writer in say Sudan.

Question – the language of the song – what is the rule?
Answer – we allow free language rule with English preferred as that is the most used language of music on the radio, but if someone in Kenya wants to sing in Russian, that is okay.

In general, the idea is that for the first year the rules are guidelines and as the contest grows and matures, more stricter rules will be in place.