Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy

For Finland's Emma music awards, see Emma-gaala.

EMMA (Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy) is an organization that raises awareness of discrimination through media campaigns, social networking, and the EMMA Awards 1998-2004.

The EMMA Awards promote diversity within the media industry by publicly recognizing the levels of excellence achieved by the multicultural community, and the qualities that each ethnic group brings to the professional and commercial success of the United Kingdom.

EMMA founder Bobby Syed launched the first EMMA Awards on 4 May 1998 at the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London. The awards ceremony was hosted by Lisa Aziz (Sky News Presenter) and Darcus Howe (Broadcaster/Journalist).

In 2001 the EMMA Awards began working with the BBC. The awards ceremony was previously televised as a regional show by Carlton Television (now ITV) in 1999 and 2000 after the Stephen Lawrence enquiry.

The EMMA Awards is a globally recognized awards ceremony. Lord Richard Attenborough received the 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London. In the previous year EMMA honored Nelson Mandela, who delivered a gracious acceptance speech commending EMMA’s mission during a private visit to London EMMA to receive his Lifetime Achievement Award.

Many of the world’s most prominent multicultural figures have received the EMMA Lifetime Achievement Award. Prestigious recipients of the award include Muhammad Ali, who in 1999 supported EMMA’s initiative with the following statement, "As in the United States, Britain is lucky to draw from the talents of a community rich in ethnic diversity." Other Lifetime Achievement award winners include Ray Charles and Maya Angelou (2002), Stevie Wonder (2003) and Bill Morris (2004).

The EMMAs – previously known as the Ethnic Minority Media Awards – became the Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards, to promote culture and not one's race; this was largely because too many people had started defining the EMMAs on racial grounds when we first started in 1998. Since this discovery, the organisers made this change immediately to coincide with the 1999 UK Awards ceremony.

With many global icons being recognised each year in front of over 1,000 VIP guests attending including 35 Ambassadors, Senior Politicians and Global Celebrities, EMMA expanded into an annual Festival with over 500 events throughout the UK during the awards ceremony month and also launched EMMA (Music) Time on BSKYB Digital in 2003 with an EMMA Chatshow in 2004.

The UK EMMAs were screened on the Internet in May each year and accompanied by an online voting system. The award categories were revamped for UK EMMA 2002 to reflect a more dynamic entertainment and information based awards ceremony. EMMA hopes that the awards will help to redefine the depth of global cultural diversity and the standards of professional achievement.

The UK EMMA Awards has attracted millions of television viewers domestically on terrestrial television and worldwide viewers through the Internet and digital broadcasting, embracing the achievements of celebrities, leading politicians, ambassadors and senior diplomats from over 50 embassies who endorse and represent the philosophy of EMMA.

Awards	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Film Actor				Eddie Murphy	Denzel Washington	Jimi Mistry	Tom Cruise
Film Actress				Michelle Yeoh	Halle Berry	Salma Hayek	Maia Morgenstern
TV Actor				Felix Dexter	Rudolph Walker
TV Actress			Angela Griffin	Lucy Liu	Diane Parish	Angela Griffin
Comedian Award					Omid Djalili	Ria Lina	Inder Manocha
Book, Novel			Zadie Smith		Amy Tan	Michael Moore
British Music Act			Craig David			Lemar
World Music Act					Nitin Sawhney		Natacha Atlas
International Music Act			Carlos Santana	Destiny's Child	Alicia Keys	Justin Timberlake	The Black Eyed Peas
Media Personality Award	George Alagiah	Ian Wright	Meera Syal
Newspaper Journalist				Gary Younge	Gary Younge	Gary Younge
Radio Journalist	Henry Bonsu	Henry Bonsu	Sanjiv Buttoo
TV Journalist		Farah Durrani			Rageh Omaar	Rageh Omaar
Public Figure			Melanie Brown	Kofi Annan
Sport Personality				Venus Williams		Thierry Henry	David Beckham
Lifetime Achievement		Muhammad Ali	Nelson Mandela	Sir Richard Attenborough	Maya Angelou	Ray Charles	Bill Morris

Patrons

The patrons of the Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy (Awards) include Sir Trevor McDonald OBE, Dame Anita Roddick (Late), Donald Woods CBE (Late), Sir GK Noon, Lord Desai, Lord Ouseley, Darcus Howe and Jonathan Dimbleby. They have all backed EMMA since 1998.