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Every year South Africa has something to complain about when it comes to African contests.

The trend is that the continental contests are usually held in our country and we have some strong contenders, but never win. Think Big Brother, or the World Cup. The latter particularly is a bittersweet memory.

While it is good for the country's image and, to some degree, its economy, it hurts many locals when the country's representatives walk out empty-handed. The Luclay saga from the recent Big Brother Africa season is a case in point.

The Channel O Music Video Awards have also been marred by the same line of thinking. We have hosted the awards so many times, but very few South African musicians have received any accolades.

Maybe this year will be different since we have some of the finest artists nominated.

After a short hiatus, Lira has returned to the global music scene with a new album. Her video for the hit song Phakade did exceptionally well on rotation. It was so good she was nominated for the Most Gifted Video of the Year and the Most Gifted Female Video. She and Kenya's STL will be the top contenders in the women's department.

Joining Lira in the queue of possible award recipients is our own James Brown, Zakes Bantwini. With his incredible video for the song Wasting My Time, Bantwini was nominated for the Most Gifted Video Of The Year. He is up against Uganda's Navio. Should he lose, Bantwini still has a chance in the Most Gifted Male Video category. It will be a tight fight though – Nigeria's finest rapper D'Banj is nominated for his great video with Snoop Dogg for the remix to the song Mr Endowed.

Bantwini is someone who many feel was robbed at the 17th SA Music Awards (Sama) showcase a few months back so these nominations come as a good consolation.

If Bantwini doesn't manage to win anything, then our hopes lie in newcomer rapper AKA, who is up for the Most Gifted Newcomer, Most Gifted Hip Hop and Most Gifted Video of the Year. Not bad for a dude who just released his debut album.

In the Newcomer category, AKA faces stiff competition from Wizkid (Nigeria), Keko (Uganda), Ice Prince (Nigeria), Zone Fam (Zambia) and homeboy Kwesta. Still on homeboys, AKA faces Proverb and Lungelo in the Most Gifted Hip Hop Video category, among other talents.

Proverb gets to bury the hatchet against AKA – they have been nominated alongside Slikour, Kwesta, Kabelo and JR for the Dubula video in the Most Gifted Duo, Group or Featuring Video categories. The crew will have to battle it out against our own Jozi on Electric Avenue, Paul G (Angola) featuring Akon, Ay (Tanzania) featuring Ms Trinity and HHP, Teargas and Liquideep (South Africa) with Born For This. This will be the fiercest fight of the night.

South Africans who'll be waving the flag in other categories include Loyiso, Theo, Howza, Jamali, DJ Cleo, Brickz and Khuli Chana.

We find it easy to blame the voting system, but the truth is that few of us pick up our phones to vote. If we were to support our artists they way we should, the results of this awards show would not be all that painful.

l Look out for voting rules and categories on www.channelo.tv