BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Barbados will be showing its international as well as national colours at this year’s Barbados Music Awards (BMA) with artistes including Rihanna, Cover Drive and Shontelle leading the glittering line-up of home-grown nominees whose achievements have captured global recognition.

According to Caribbean 360, a online Caribbean newspaper, exclusively international awards categories were introduced at the BMA in 2007,and this year tributes in that class will be paid to the late Whitney Houston, who died tragically on the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards, and is the recipient of the 2013 BMA International Icon Award.

The American megastar’s mother, gospel great Cissy Houston, will receive the International Award Of Excellence, and will also be performing live at the event.

Also, several outstanding Barbadian nationals will be honoured for their contribution to entertainment when the eighth annual awards ceremony takes the spotlight at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Sunday.

Thousands of online fans, along with a 50-member committee, have voted as part of the nominations process for the event, and due to the overwhelming public response, a People’s Choice Social Media Award has now been introduced. Voting in that category began on November 2 on the official BMA Facebook page.