Dear colleagues and friends,
Our bruised and battered world breathed a collective sigh of relief when Joe Biden’s victory was announced a week ago. Yes of course, he is as old as the last generation of African leaders, but he might still have a good fight in him. After all, he is still the same man who made this powerful, impassioned speech against US support to the apartheid regime back in 1986.
In the same week came the news of a potential COVID vaccine with 90% efficiency, and just as I am writing these lines we’re hearing of another, potentially even more effective one. So there might, finally, maybe, be some light at the end of this very long, dark tunnel of gloom.
On the continent however, the ghosts of undemocratic elections, state repression, and ethnic conflict seem to be catching a second wind. Opposition voices are being arrested in Tanzania, locked in a vice-like grip in Côte d’Ivoire, actively fought on the ground and in the courts in Nigeria, or dragged into a full-on war as tensions in Ethiopia’s Tigray region escalate and engulf neighbor Eritrea.
None of this is new of course, as the complicated legacy of former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings, who passed away a few days ago, reminds us. But it’s 2020 and every bad news carries with it a specific “Oh My God What Next” kind of flavor.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about Google and Orange bringing the promise of superfast internet to East and West Africa; Ghana’s Wakanda City of Return; and MultiChoice’s smart investment in sports-betting. But you’ll also read about Jumia’s path towards profitability; Kenya’s literary dwarfism (not my term, I wouldn’t dare); the intriguing concept of music development banks; Lesotho’s first entry in the Best Foreign Film Oscar race; and the annus horribilis of the Nigerian cinema sector.
The next edition of HUSTLE & FLOW will be its 30th, a nice, round number to wrap this up for the year. I will take a break from newsletter writing in December, and will find you all again, hopefully refreshed, in January.
In the meantime, head over to www.restless.global/hustleflow to subscribe or check out the archives, and please stay in touch via email, DM, whatsapp, or else, as it is always a pleasure to hear from you.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
There’s some Star Trek-worthy news this week in internet infrastructure. After launching its Loon balloons in July, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is now banking on invisible light beams to provide high-speed internet to Africa’s rural and remote areas. The initiative, dubbed “Project Taara”, will allow for the high-speed transmission of up to 20 gigabits per second between Taara terminals mounted high up on existing towers or rooftops over distances of up to 20 kilometers. The planned pan-African roll-out will start, just like Loon, in Kenya, in partnership with Econet.
In the same week, French telco Orange launched Djoliba, a new terrestrial and undersea fibre-optic network in West Africa that will deliver high speed broadband at up to 100 Gbps and seamless connection to Orange’s services across Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. This is a big deal as previously telecommunications networks in the area were built independently within each country and stopped at national borders. Orange, which says it is investing $1.18 billion annually into the continent’s digital transformation, currently serves 120 million customers in 18 African countries. It has identified the Middle East and Africa as a key growth driver for the company as part of its five-year plan.
MOBILE
The war in Tigray has certainly tarnished Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Abiy Ahmed’s image as a reformer, however whether it will impact foreign companies’ appetite for the country’s 110 million-strong market is another story. Last week, the Ethiopian Communications Authority confirmed that two new service providers had been selected to receive the country’s first private operating licences, and that their names would be revealed by the end of this month. Suspense. As you may recall, 12 entities including MTN, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, Liquid Telecom, but also a consortium called Global Partnership for Ethiopia made up of Safaricom, Vodacom and Vodafone, had thrown their hats in the ring of this highly competitive process.
E-COMMERCE
Nothing like a good pandemic and global lockdown to boost a struggling e-commerce business. Over the last few weeks, investors had parked on Jumia, expecting some major growth this quarter. That did not happen. Jumia lost 20% of its value last week when the company reported a lower than expected revenue for Q3 2020 - an 18% fall year over year. However, things might be better than they seem as in fact Jumia has been on a journey to reduce its historically staggering losses. By evolving beyond selling only first-party products (products which Jumia sells directly to end customers) to become a “marketplace” for third-parties, Jumia has temporarily sacrificed higher revenue for better margins over the longer term. Also, after getting into fintech with Jumia Pay, Jumia is now betting on spinning off its logistics arm and opening it up to 3rd-party e-commerce companies across 11 countries in Africa. As Jumia already is one of the biggest players in the e-commerce logistics space across the continent, this seems like a no-brainer move to unlock revenue. The question really is not whether e-commerce will work in African in the future, but rather how long investors will be willing to fund losses before it does.
FASHION
When Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Accra became one of the countless victims of this pandemic, the automaker decided it still wanted to spotlight the work of local West African talent. It is doing it in this special Vogue photo series showcasing the new collections of five Accra-based designers (Larry Jafaru Mohammed, Steve French, Hassan Alfaziz Iddrisu, Atto Tetteh, and Chloe Asaam), all focused on innovating traditional Ghanaian textiles and implementing eco-friendly production methods. Yes, sustainability is the new black.
In Ethiopia, a $6.5 million fund has been set up as a partnership between the government, the UK, and Germany to save thousands of jobs in the country’s textile and garments industry threatened by the COVID-19 slowdown. Through the fund, Ethiopia’s textile factories can apply for wage subsidies and incentives to reward businesses that can adapt to respond to the pandemic.
LITERATURE
HUSTLE & FLOW favorite Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been voted "Winner of Winners", a once-off award in celebration of the Women's Prize’s 25th anniversary, for her iconic novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Adichie beat out previous winners Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, and Rose Tremain. The Women's Prize, formerly known as the Orange Prize, brought Half of a Yellow Sun into prominence back in 2007.
As Nigerian writers continue to assert their uber-dominance over English-language African fiction, Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola digs into the reasons behind her own country’s lack of literary clout in a masterfully written article. Nyabola links “Kenya’s literary dwarfism” to the “virulent anti-intellectualism” of Daniel arap Moi’s long-running regime, which was characterized until its end in 2002 by arbitrary arrests, detention, and the exile of scholars including Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Today Kenyan publishers still self-censor, foreign books are taxed like luxury items, self-help is the most popular genre, and fiction writers tend to “hide their observations behind heavy-handed moralizing in books that can be sold as assigned reading for high school students.” But recent releases such as Makena Maganjo’s debut novel South B’s Finest, Billy Kahora’s short story collection The Cape Cod Bicycle War, and Nairobi Noir, a collection of crime stories edited by Peter Kimani, might be finally threading a different path. I’ll leave the last word to Nyabola as I can’t do better than that: “Nairobi readers of contemporary fiction may be left still longing for a story about a Nairobian who has sex, smokes a blunt, or has a beer without their life unraveling into a cautionary tale. Regardless, these books are a declaration of intent.”
HOSPITALITY
In 2019, Ghana organized ‘the Year of Return’, drawing many members of the diaspora, including celebrities, to the country to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in America. The success of the event was such that it should be made a Harvard case study. Since then, Ghana has been making efforts to consolidate the gains made “Beyond the Year of Return”. Last week, the city of Cape Coast announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Africa Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) and two local companies to create an ultramodern city called the “Wakanda City of Return” (hope somebody checked they could use or license the name). The partners seek to create a place of pilgrimage for the people of African descent to learn about their history, culture, the civilization of Africa, and its role in the creation of the new world economy. As long as it doesn’t turn into a white elephant or a basket case, I’m here for it.
MUSIC
Warner Music has signed a new licensing deal with music streaming platform Audiomack for key African territories including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. Audiomack, which claims to have more than 16 million monthly active users, will also provide support for Warner Music’s A&R research activities across these territories. For Warner Music, this is just the latest in a series of African moves that includes recent investments in Nigerian label Chocolate City and music rights management company Africori. At the beginning of last year, Warner Music also became the second major music company to sign a direct licensing deal with Africa’s biggest music streaming service, Boomplay.
Meanwhile, as new lockdowns are being instituted in Europe and the US and performance venues continue to operate (if at all) at limited capacity worldwide, Shain Shapiro of the Center for Music Ecosystems is making the case for the creation of “music development banks”. The live performance industry may be in shambles, he writes, but people are also paradoxically consuming more music than ever before - on streaming platforms of course, but also through TV, films, or video games. In fact, in the United States, the value of recorded music increased by 5.6% in the first half of 2020, prompting a number of investment funds to bet on recurring heritage music rights. However, the ecosystem requires musicians to continue to create music and right now, many of them are struggling. Shapiro argues that the creation of a Music Development Bank could support and protect the sector during this difficult time by recognizing the future value of music and spreading the risk over time. The idea is intriguing and sounds very similar to the African Music Fund launched by Nigerian superstar Mr Eazi in July this year -- a model that the various DFIs that have pledged to support the African creative industries should investigate.
And finally, a win for the culture: the Grammys are finally changing the name of their “best world music” album category to “best global music” album, to avoid “connotations of colonialism”. Initially coined in the UK in 1987 to help market music from non-western artists, the term “world music” had since become highly criticized, including by three-time Best World Music Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo, for its patronizing undertones. The Grammys’ change follows the announcement last July that the Recording Academy’s “best urban contemporary” album would be renamed “best progressive R&B” album, as the term “urban” is increasingly seen as an inappropriate descriptor of Black music.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Way back in February BC (Before COVID), I wrote that Vivendi Sports was up to something in Africa. Since then, the pandemic has put a freeze over most of the group’s planned activities, but it’s always good to hear from Vivendi Sports’ dynamic CEO and former rugby pro Robins Tchale-Watchou, who was interviewed by Jeune Afrique last week. In just 2 years of operation, Vivendi Sports notably created the Tour de l'Espoir, a cycling competition reserved for under 23s, organized boxing tournaments, and launched ARES, the first African-European MMA league, with a first major competition that drew a crowd of 5,000 in Dakar last December. All these events take advantage of synergies within the group: the competitions are organized whenever possible around the CanalOlympia sites, so that they can be combined with concerts showcasing Universal Music artists, and benefit from special media coverage by Canal+ television channels. Great strategy, bad timing.
In football news, South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe has been nominated as a candidate for the leadership of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) as the race for the top post in African soccer gathers momentum. Motsepe’s candidacy has already won support from Botswana, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The two other candidates are embattled incumbent Ahmad Ahmad of Madagascar and the Ivorian Jacques Anouma, a former FIFA executive committee member.
After much debate and some likely vigorous haggling over price, Multichoice SuperSport has renewed its broadcasting agreement with the English Premier League until 2025. The broadcasting rights have been confirmed to extend across Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa) and cut across all languages and via all the available distribution platforms. This is coming just as South African regulator ICASA is about to publish a regulatory mandate requiring DStv to make the broadcast so-called "public interest sports" available free-to-air. Did SuperSport just pay big money for content it will be forced to broadcast for free? Apparently not, as the new regulation does not seem to concern international league matches but rather major competitions such as the Summer Olympic Games, the Paralympics, the (FIFA) World Cup, the (FIFA) Women's World Cup, the Africa Cup of Nations, the Rugby World Cup, the Cricket (ICC) World Cup, the T20 Cricket World Championships, the Netball World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the IAAF World Athletics Championships, the Super Rugby, the All Africa Games, the COSAFA Cup, the CAF Champions League, and the CAF Confederations Cup. If the draft regulation comes into law, SuperSport will be facing existential problems pretty soon.
BROADCAST
Mais jusqu’ici, tout va bien. Actually, things are better than good for Multichoice, whose just-released first-half earnings statement revealed that the South African Pay TV group had breached the 20 million subscriber mark across Africa for the first time, amounting to a 6% increase in active subscribers over the six months through September. These are strong results for the group which was spun out of Naspers in February last year amid concerns over its profitability. The group also announced that it planned to develop more local productions and share more content costs with new shareholder Canal+. The duo have already teamed up on Blood Psalms, a drama based on pre-colonial South African mythology, which is due to be broadcast on MultiChoice’s Showmax streaming service next year. Another highlight from the earnings statement is the news that MultiChoice had acquired a 20% stake in Nigerian sports-betting platform BetKing for $81 million, valuing the startup company at over $400 million, and giving Multichoice access to a booming sector which presents many synergies with its activities, and not only when it comes to sports content. Just imagine what online sports-betting technology could do when applied to a non-sports competition blessed with a rabid following such as Big Brother Naija. (Print money, that’s what it would do.)
VOD
Not a big surprise, but now we have some numbers to back it up: Netflix is the leading streaming platform in South Africa with a 35% market share, while Showmax is second with a 25% share, according to rating service JustWatch.
There continues to be lots of activity in the (crowded) South African VOD space. Staying with Showmax, the local streamer recently announced the launch of a free, ad-supported version of its service for the South African market. Has the time for a-VOD finally come in Africa? This remains to be seen but it’s definitely a worthwhile experiment on Showmax’s part which we will be observing closely.
A bit late to the party but not a contender to be dismissed nonetheless, new platform TelkomONE has inked an agreement with SABC which will give the streamer non-exclusive access to content from SABC1 and SABC2 TV channels, as well as sports and educational content, and audio content from 19 SABC radio stations. The novelty here is that SABC will be paid a carriage licence fee, plus a yet-to-be-determined share of revenues generated by TelkomONE from its content. The deal, inspired by the American US cable carriage model, is similar to what SABC has been pushing to get from Dtsv.
FILM
The glocal appeal of Nollywood films was confirmed in a big way this year thanks to the impressive success on Netflix of films such as Oloture or Citation (number 6 worldwide last week). Meanwhile, on the ground, Nigeria’s once-booming cinema sector was going through the Year from Hell. A few weeks ago, just as cinemas were finally reopening after an inexplicably long and somewhat absurd lockdown (considering the mild impact of the pandemic in Nigeria), the #EndSARS protests and the ensuing mayhem forced theaters to close again. Some locations, such as three state-of-the-art FilmHouse cinemas, were destroyed by looters. Variety estimates that after a string of record-setting years at the box office, the Nigerian industry will take a hit of up to $21 million in 2020, a 60%-70% drop from 2019. A long list of highly anticipated films, all backed up during the long months of closure, are now set to be released over the next few weeks and during the holiday period. Netflix will no doubt also have its pick of the many unreleased films which will struggle to find a spot in cinemas among the backlog. However, with the delayed or cancelled release of many big Hollywood titles, there is an unprecedented opportunity for the local film industry to step up and grab a wider market share - if nothing else comes in the way.
Kenya has selected multiple award-winning documentary The Letter as the country’s official entry for the Oscars’ best international film category, while Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection is Lesotho’s first ever entry in the competition. The nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards will be announced on February 9th, 2021, while the ceremony itself will take place on April 25th.
And finally, the African film community has been celebrating the nomination a couple weeks ago of one of its own, creative industries veteran Alex Moussa Sawadogo, as FESPACO’s new director. The dynamic and very qualified Sawadogo will be in charge of modernizing the iconic festival, which takes place every other year in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and has in recent years been marred with financial and organizational issues. Educated in Germany, Sawadogo also has the potential to expand the attractiveness of the festival beyond the French-speaking world. We certainly wish him well.
GAMING
The 2020 Fak’ugesi Arcade event, which is running virtually this month, is a good opportunity to get to know the people and studios at the forefront of African gaming. If this is your space, check out the ‘People of Play’ exhibition, which is showcasing 13 of the most well-known developers on the continent including Hugo Obi of Maliyo Games (Nigeria), Eyram Tawia of Leti Games (Ghana), Dawit Abrahim of Qene Games (Ethiopia). Also watch out for Africa Games Week and the Business of Gaming event which will take place virtually on December 3rd and 4th, 2020.