The on-going Radio City Freedom Awards’ fifth edition reached a crucial stage as the competition zeroed down on 59 acts across six categories for the finals. Divided into Hip Hop, Pop, Rock, Folk Fusion, Metal and Electronic music genres, the categories feature some new faces and a few no-surprises.

Known as someone who’s redefined rap songwriting with his releases in 2017, Prabh Deep joins the small and exclusive list of artists that surely deserved to be in the finals. Joining the Delhi-based hip-hop musician in the category is arguably Mumbai’s finest collective, Mumbai’s Finest. Bengaluru’s Brodha V, too, entered the list.

In the Pop music category, the finalists feature Alobo Naga, Mumbai-based Sparsh and Ankur & The Ghalat Family, Easy Wanderlings, Jaipur’s Prateek Kuhad and five other acts. Kamkashi Khanna, too, features in the final nominees list.

On the Rock front, Parvaaz comes as an obvious entrant considering the band’s rise in popularity since the release of their last album, the recently concluded Canada tour and the single ‘Beparwah’ being featured in a recently released Bollywood flick. Delhi’s alternative rock act Sifar and Kolkata’s rap rock outfit Underground Authority were among other finalists in the list.

Swarathma’s vocalist is shortlisted in the ‘Best Folk Fusion Artist’ for his song ‘Ragi Tandira’. The established songwriter from Bengaluru is quite possibly the most recognised face among the final nominees. This also suggests Radio City’s dedicated effort to scrape some raw, rarely heard and underground acts across genres. Pragnya Wakhlu and SubraMania feature among the finalists in the category.

Mumbai-based Sahil Makhija fronted metal outfit Demonic Resurrection return to the final nominees of the Radio City Freedom Awards. The Minerva Conduct and Godless feature in the list featuring six other bands from across the country.

Delhi based Komorebi and Grain’s collaboration ‘Dream’ earned them a nomination in the ‘Best Electronic Aritst’ list, which is populated by Mumbai’s Bandish Projekt, SickFlip and Vice Versa.

Here’s the entire list of nominees:

Radio City Freedom Awards (RCFA) is the most definitive platform to recognize, honor and celebrate talents across the Indie music diaspora. Apart from awarding credible compositions, RCFA also applauds notable non-music contributions to the field of independent music.

Following a thorough screening by the interim jury, the short-listed nominations will be up for two awards in each music-genre based category. For e.g.: Best Pop Artist – Judge’s Choice and Best Pop Artist People’s Choice. The People’s Choice Award will be selected through public voting only.

Following are the music genre based categories namely :

Best Hip-Hop/Rap Artist | Best Folk Fusion Artist | Best Pop Artist | Best Rock Artist | Best Metal Artist | Best Electronica Artist

Besides the music genre based categories, the nominations for the below non-music categories will be screened by the jury only :

Best Video | Best Album Art | Best Young Indie Artist | Best Indie Collaboration | Indie-Genius: Person of the Year