A local urban music artist Wikise, real name Frank Chawinga, says the award he has won from Mikozi Marketing Network will help him in promoting his recently released single titled ‘N’zamuwathu’.

Mikozi, a digital marketing network that promotes urban music by different artists through its website, awarded Wikise with K100, 000 on January 14.

Wikise told Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Friday that he was excited to be the best searched artist on the website and felt honoured to be the first to receive the award.

“I am so excited to have won this award and it means I am being loved and recognized out there,” he said.

“I will use this money to promote my song and meet some of my personal needs,” he added.

Mikozi Marketing Network Public Relations and Communication Officer Sharon Kadam’manja said they noted that various music websites have been collecting money from adverts but none has ever rewarded artists despite generating traffic from their sites.

“After realizing efforts, the time the artist spend producing music and entertaining Malawians, the Mikozi Network together with its partners decided to reward music artists on our website,” Kadam’manja said.

Asked on why Wikise was given the award, Kadam’manja said they used simple criteria for the most searched artist on the website.

“Our criteria for selecting the next artist will keep changing so that we reward artists based on outstanding performance in different aspects,” she said.

Kadam’manja further said the initiative should be regarded as a wake-up call to other websites administrators to also be rewarding their artists to motivate them.

(Written by Norah Hanke/Mana)