UK Asian Music Awards

UK Asian Music Awards
UK Asian Music Awards logo
Awarded for	Asian music
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	B4U Music
First awarded	2002
Official website	www.theukama.com

The UK Asian Music Awards, also known by the abbreviation UK AMA, is an awards show that is held annually in the United Kingdom since 2002. The awards show has been produced and broadcast by B4U Music since 2008. Awards winners are decided by public voting at a website, from a list of nominees presented by the event organizers, except for the special category awards "Outstanding Achievement" and "Commitment to Scene" which are decided by the organizers.Desimag called the event "The most prestigious Asian music awards ceremony in the UK".

The UK Asian Music Awards were founded by Abs Shaid in 2002 as "The Asian DJ and Music Awards". They were held on March 6, 2002 at the Aquarium nightclub in London. The event was filmed by BBC2 and Zee TV, and was aired on BBC2s Network East.

Following the success of the 2002 event, the UK Asian Music Awards (UKAMA) was formed. In 2003, Abs Shaid teamed with Br-Asian Media, managed by managing director Moiz Vas, to produce the 2003 event. The event took place in London at Hammersmith Palais on the 22 October 2003. It was filmed and broadcast by ITV, who reported viewing figures of one million in the UK. B4U Music broadcast two exclusive versions during prime time slots in 80 countries over the Christmas period. Other sources give the viewing figures of 2 millions in the UK and 500 million worldwide. A 2003 review by Tom Horan in The Telegraph said: "This was a hugely inspiring night for new British music... The freshest most innovative and exciting sounds this year have come from the Asian club world. Here, with the first ever AMAs, the scene celebrated its gate crashing of the pop mainstream... there was something in the event's familial warmth and celebration that spoke of a thousand wedding receptions". Award winners were decided via online, SMS and interactive television voting. The voting process was criticized, claiming that the event turned out to be a popularity contest.

After the show, both parties claimed rights to continuing the show. This resulted in both parties issuing their own announcements for the next event, with Shaid's group keeping the name "UK Asian Music Awards" and Br-Asian's group calling it the British Asian Music Awards (BrAMA).ITV chose to side with BrAMA. and on 7 October 2004 Br-Asian made a launch party, planning for the 23 February 2005 at Ocean in London, which was later changed to 24 March 2005.