Taking place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center at 26 August 03:00 CAT, the MTV “Video Music Awards“ will broadcast live across Africa on MTV (DStv Channel 130) on Monday 26 August.
Justin Timberlake and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis lead this year’s VMA pack with six overall nominations each. Timberlake’s nominations include 'Video of the Year', 'Best Male Video', 'Best Pop Video' and 'Best Editing' for 'Mirrors', while his 'Suit & Tie' featuring JAY Z scored nods for 'Best Collaboration', and 'Best Direction'. Previously, Timberlake has taken home seven 'Video Music Awards', including 'Best Pop Video' for 'Cry Me a River'.
Fresh off their show stopping performances at the “MTV Movie Awards” and “mtvU Woodie Awards” Macklemore & Ryan Lewis score their first-ever “Video Music Award” nominations with six nods (tying Justin Timberlake in total nominations) including “Video of the Year” for their smash hit “Thrift Shop”, “Best Hip Hop Video”, “Best Cinematography”, “Best Direction”, and “Best Editing” for “Can’t Hold Us featuring Ray Dalton”, while “Same Love” received a nod for "Best Video with a Social Message".
Bruno Mars continues his hugely successful year by garnering four nominations including “Video of the Year”, “Best Pop Video”, and “Best Male Video” for “Locked Out of Heaven”, and “Best Choreography” for the smooth summer groove, “Treasure”.
P!nk, Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus and Thirty Seconds to Mars are each up for three Video Music Awards. P!nk’s powerful “Just Give Me A Reason” featuring Nate Ruess garnered multiple nominations for “Best Female Video”, “Best Collaboration” and “Best Editing”. Robin Thicke’s sexy video for “Blurred Lines” feat T.I. and Pharrell received VMA nods for “Video of the Year”, “Best Male Video” and “Best Collaboration”. Miley Cyrus’ millennial anthem “We Can’t Stop” is up for “Best Female Video”, “Best Pop Video” and “Best Editing”, while Thirty Seconds To Mars’ “Up In The Air” received nominations for “Best Rock Video”, “Best Art Direction” and “Best Cinematography”.
Other notable nominees receiving multiple 2013 Video Music Award nods range from the worlds of Pop, Hip-Hop, EDM, R&B and Rock and include previously nominated artists such as Taylor Swift, Drake, fun., Calvin Harris, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as well as first-time VMA nominees Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd and Capital Cities.
Winners will take home a special-edition Moonman trophy, re-imagined by world-renowned, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS and created exclusively for this year’s show.
To build anticipation for the show, MTV launched a successful cross platform social campaign, #RoadToTheVMAs, which features the Moonman in a myriad of iconic locations throughout Brooklyn and NYC. Thus far, the campaign has garnered more than 45 million social media impressions to date including over half a million likes on Instagram, 30.4 million impressions on Twitter, 13.5 million impressions on Facebook and 1 million impressions on Tumblr. MTV continued its creative use of social media by rolling out the 2013 VMA nominations as a series of imaginative stop motion videos created by 23-year old artist, Khoa, on the @MTV Instagram and Vine accounts.
