South Australian Music Awards winners include Swapmeet, DEM MOB and Elsy Wameyo

The annual SA Music Awards, presented by MusicSA, showcased the depth of talent within South Australia’s music community. Artists, industry leaders, and music fans packed the Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre, with industry and People’s Choice Awards. Emcees Troy Sincock and Sose Fuamoli kept the awards flowing smoothly.

Up-and-coming local band Swapmeet took out four awards, including Best Song for “I Know!”, Best Group, and Best Release (EP/Album) for Mount Zero; along with the People’s Choice Award for Rock.

First Nations Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara hip hop group DEM MOB are no strangers to the SA Music Awards, with 13 awards in just the past four years. Major category wins this year were Best Regional Artist and Best Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Artist and Best Music Educator in the Industry Awards.

Elsy Wameyo was another big winner with three awards, Best Solo Artist and Best Music Video for “WAMEYO”, and the People’s Choice Award for Hip Hop.

The Awards celebrate venues and those behind the scenes as well as musicians. Space Jams was awarded Best Regional Music Venue or Festival, while Caltowie Chilled Out ’n’ Fired Up Music Festival was crowned as Best Small Festival.

Rachel Whitford was awarded Best Manager and James Brown was presented with Best Studio Engineer/Producer.

The Neville Clark Award honours the late Neville Clark, a leading mastering engineer and owner of Disk Edits. This was presented to two sound production graduates, Ellie Moffatt from SAE Creative Media Institute and Felicity Slee from TAFE SA.

Adelaide is a UNESCO city of music and the board chose Breeze as the recipient of the UNESCO Best International Collaboration Award. A poignant moment was when singer-songwriter Nancy Bates was presented with the MusicSA Community Achievement Award, in recognition of her education and coaching efforts, particularly with First Nations communities in South Australia.

Joining The Angels and Cold Chisel in the SA Music Hall of Fame were local rockers Bad//Dreems.

During the evening, exceptional live performances from Rob Edwards, Ella Ion, Nat Luna, and Any Young Mechanic kept the energy flowing.

For more info about the awards check the website.

Check out photos from the evening from John Goodridge.