2008 World Music Awards

The 20th annual World Music Awards was held on 9 November 2008 in Monaco. Awards are given based on worldwide sales figures for that year. The ceremony was hosted by actor Jesse Metcalfe and singer Michelle Williams.

Performers

Nominees

Below is a list of all the nominees for each award, the winners are in bold.

World's Best Selling Record Act

World's Best Selling Pop Female Artist

World's Best Selling Pop Male Artist

World's Best Selling Pop/Rock Female Artist

World's Best Selling Pop/Rock Male Artist

World's Best Selling Rock Act

World's Best Selling R&B Female

World's Best Selling R&B Male

World's Best Selling New R&B Act

World's Best Selling New Act

World music

World music is a musical category encompassing many different styles of music from around the globe, which includes many genres of non-Western music including folk music, ethnic music, traditional music, indigenous music, neotraditional music, and music where more than one cultural tradition, such as when ethnic music and Western popular music intermingle. World music's inclusive nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there". The term was popularized in the 1980s as a marketing category for non-Western traditional music.Globalization has facilitated the expansion of world music's audiences and scope. It has grown to include hybrid subgenres such as world fusion, global fusion, ethnic fusion and worldbeat.

Terminology

The term has been credited to ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown, who coined it in the early 1960s at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he developed undergraduate through the doctoral programs in the discipline. To enhance the process of learning, he invited more than a dozen visiting performers from Africa and Asia and began a world music concert series. The term became current in the 1980s as a marketing/classificatory device in the media and the music industry. There are several conflicting definitions for world music. One is that it consists of "all the music in the world", though such a broad definition renders the term virtually meaningless.

Akon

Aliaume Damala Badara Akon Thiam (born April 16, 1973) (pronounced /ˈeɪkɒn/), better known as Akon, is an American singer, rapper, songwriter, businessman, record producer and actor. He rose to prominence in 2004 following the release of "Locked Up", the first single from his debut album Trouble.

He has since founded two successful record labels, Konvict Muzik and Kon Live Distribution. His second album, Konvicted received three nominations for the Grammy Awards in two categories, Best Contemporary R&B Album for Konvicted album and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Smack That" and "I Wanna Love You".

He is the first solo artist to hold both the number one and two spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 charts twice. Akon has had four songs certified as 3x platinum, three songs certified as 2x platinum, more than ten songs certified as 1x platinum and more than ten songs certified as gold in digital sales. Akon has sung songs in other languages including Tamil, Hindi, and Spanish. He was listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the #1 selling artist for master ringtones in the world.

World Music Awards

The World Music Awards is an international awards show founded in 1989 under the high patronage of Albert II, Prince of Monaco and is based in Monte-Carlo. Awards are presented to the world's best-selling artists in the various categories and to the best-selling artists from each major territory. Sales figures are provided by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Nine awards are voted online by the public. The awards are gold-plated, each depicting an artist holding the world.

Charity

The World Music Awards builds hospitals, schools and orphanages through the Monaco Aide et Presence Foundation and the Combonian Missionary Association which assist underdeveloped Areas in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Brazil. There are 23 operational Centres saving lives and providing shelter and education including a hospital at Port Bouet in Côte d'Ivoire serving a population of over 170,000 inhabitants, a hospital, 2 homes and a school in India, a home in Sri Lanka for handicapped girls, a hospital in Rwanda, a hospital in Darfur, a hospital and school in Niger, a health centre and home in Cameroun and a hospital in Cambodia. Additionally, a home for abandoned children in Brazil, plus a hospital, school and 12 homes in Madagascar have been constructed, and the complete renovation and extension of an existing hospital in Mokatam, Egypt.

World

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth or pertaining to anywhere on Earth.

In a philosophical context it may refer to:

In a theological context, world usually refers to the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts.

World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.

World population is the sum of all human populations at any time; similarly, world economy is the sum of the economies of all societies (all countries), especially in the context of globalization. Terms like world championship, gross world product, world flags etc. also imply the sum or combination of all current-day sovereign states.