MUMBAI: After a fabulous response, support and acknowledgement received for the last two editions, Radio City, proudly announces the third edition of Radio City Freedom Awards - a platform to recognize and reward independent music artists across genres and languages. Radio City Freedom Awards aims to be grander and extravagant with its third edition with Encompass as the co-partners for the event.

Entries are now open and Radio City invites all the independent artists to submit their compositions on www.planetradiocity.com/rcfa. Post a successful event in Delhi last year, the celebrations and award night would be concluded in the City of dreams, Mumbai in the end of February 2016. This season RCFA rejoices music and art with ‘Music and Beyond’ by showcasing spoken word artists in a special segment in the grand finale.

Radio City Freedom Awards is an ideal platform to celebrate the essence of ‘Indie-pendent’ music. Radio City Freedom Awards invites entries from Indian artists across the globe in 11 categories viz. Best Hip-Hop Rap Artist, Best Folk Fusion Artist, Best Pop Artist, Best Rock, Best Metal, Best Electronica Artist, Best Video, Best Album Art. ‘Best Young Indie Artist/Band’, ‘Best Indie Collaboration of the year’ and ‘Indie Genius- Person of the year’.

Speaking on the third edition of Radio City Freedom Awards, Radio City CEO Abraham Thomas, enunciates, “Radio City Freedom Awards aims to celebrate the essence of independent music and provide a platform to promote ‘alternate’ music in the country. It fulfils the need gap for recognition in the independent music space. This is a global platform that pits the best of indie musicians against each other and provides an interface between the emerging fresh talent and the stalwarts in the industry. Expect to witness sparklers of talent in the Radio City Freedom Awards this year as well.”

Elaborating further, Radio City business head, and digital media & new business, Rachna Kanwar says, “Radio City Freedom Awards has managed to carve a niche for itself and has become the most awaited recognition amongst the indie fraternity. With the amazing response that we received in the last two editions, the idea is to take it a notch higher this year. In this edition, we go a step further with ‘Music and Beyond’ to showcase the spoken word artists along with the Indie musicians. This will give a huge fillip to our online property, ‘Open Mic’.”

Commenting on the partnership, Encompass managing director Roshan Abbas said "Radio City and Geometry Global Encompass have been working on the awards for two years! We have decided to take the awards and our relationship to the next level. The awards will reach out to the indie community and not only honour music but go beyond to the spoken words and other genres."

Radio City Freedom Awards is an open competition that is not restricted to any specific language or region. Participants are free to submit their entries in Assamese, Malayalam, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Oriya, etc for the competition. Shortlisted entries will be judged by a power packed panel of judges comprising of Luke Kenny, Atul Churamani, Yotam Agam and Nandini Srikar. The winners will be felicitated on the RCFA award night in Mumbai that will be held end of February. Keeping the spirit of indie music alive, the finale of Radio City Freedom Awards will witness some amazing and grand performances by leading indie musicians.

Corresponding with the past two editions, this year as well Radio City Freedom Awards will have a 360 degree promotion mix. To reach out to all the aspirants, the promotional campaign will be executed across Print, Radio, Television, Digital, Outdoor and on-ground mediums. The finale event would be telecasted exclusively on NDTV Prime.

Radio City Freedom Awards is a pioneering effort to applaud the independent singers and musicians, who have pushed the boundaries to create musical breakthroughs in the independent music diaspora.