Dear colleagues and friends,
We seem to have now entered a new stage in this COVID crisis. After more than a month of confinement and with the fragile hope that the peak of the pandemic has been reached, European countries and American states are starting to consider plans to slowly re-open their economies.
Meanwhile, according to experts and economists, Africa is either on the brink of a health, social, and economic disaster, or, with the myths of Western invincibility and Chinese dominance falling apart, presented with a major opportunity to finally complete the decolonization of the continent (and so, ultimately, a good thing).
Talking about China, it’s been fascinating to see the nature of Africa-Chinese relations evolve in the past couple weeks, starting with the shocking images of Africans being targeted and evicted from their homes in Guangzhou and the pushback from African governments, media and citizens, all of this taking place as negotiations over debt repayments were going on in the background. Indeed, not only is China Africa’s largest trading partner but it is also the continent’s biggest creditor. For now, China has indicated it will only consider potential debt relief measures on a case by case basis.
In any case, it is clear that turning inwards to develop local or regional skills, markets, and value chains will be crucial in a post-COVID world. But in the meantime, the only playground available for the African Entertainment sector is the internet. This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I'll talk about how some artists have been building massive new audiences on Instagram Live, which is fast becoming the new television, and we'll get a sneak peek at Africa's first self-shot lockdown series.
Thanks to those of you who wrote recently with encouraging feedback and supportive words -- please continue to engage by emailing me at marie@restless.global.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
GENERAL RESCUE MEASURES
The African Union’s campaign to restructure the continent’s debt won a first victory this week with the G20 agreeing to suspend debt interest payments owed to them by some of the world's poorest countries for 2020. But the AU’s plan wants to go much further, seeking $44 billion of debt relief (out of a total $365 billion owed), a generalized suspension of interest payment for all of Africa’s economies, and a stimulus package of $100-150 billion. While the AU is facing strong opposition, especially from the US and China, it has the backing of several European leaders and international opinion is shifting in its favor.
Recognizing that the moment presents a “cultural emergency”, UNESCO launched ResiliArt, “a global movement consisting of a series of virtual debates with key industry professionals and artists” to raise awareness on the impact of the current confinement measures on the culture sector. I looked everywhere but, sadly, there seems to be no financial measures attached to this initiative.
MOBILE
Kenyan operator Safaricom announced that it had recorded a 70% increase in fixed internet usage and a 35% increase in mobile data consumption due to the lockdown. Even more interestingly, internet traffic to Netflix has quadrupled from March to mid April in Kenya.
The explosion in demand is pushing governments and operators across Africa to increase network capacity and lower prices, which we can hope will have a lasting positive impact. In Ghana, the National Communication Authority has allocated free additional spectrum to MTN and Vodafone for a period of three months, while browsing is now free with Airtel Togo and Opera. In South Africa, the Independent Communications Authority (ICASA) has received 35 applications from mobile operators seeking temporary allocation of new radio frequency spectrum. South African operators had been asking for access to additional spectrum for years, as it would allow them to serve a wider geographic area with existing towers while also carrying more data traffic, and thus help decrease the cost of data in South Africa. They can now thank COVID-19 for pushing the government to finally instruct ICASA to act on this in March. In parallel, Vodacom has also announced that it will invest $26.7 million over two months to boost its network capacity and increase the network’s resilience during the country’s national lockdown period.
E-COMMERCE
With COVID-19 fast-forwarding the adoption of e-commerce across Africa, Rwanda’s 2018 partnership with Alibaba, which led to the launch of Africa’s first e-commerce university programme developed with the African Leadership University (ALU) in Kigali, seems very prescient. ALU is also collaborating with Alibaba Business School's Global Ecommerce Talent (GET) Programme to organize the Africa edition of the GET Global Challenge 2020 entitled “Digital Solutions During COVID-19 and Beyond”, which is currently open for applications until May 4th. Successful applicants can win various prizes including up to $14,000 in business funding.
FASHION
The June 5th final of the annual LVMH Prize, the most prestigious fashion award for young designers, has been cancelled. Instead of postponing the event or moving it online, LVMH decided to split the 300,000 euros prize money equally between all of the eight finalists, including South African Sindiso Khumalo, and to set up a fund to financially support young design talent. Last year’s LVMH Prize winner was 26-year-old Thebe Magugu, another South African and the first African ever to pick up the prize, while Nigerian Kenneth Ize was a finalist.
The rise of African designers to the select group of fashion’s most promising global talents is a testament to the potential of Africa’s fashion industry, which is also unfortunately one of the creative sectors hardest hit by the current economic shutdown. However, the African fashion community has also been quick to come together to discuss ways to build further resilience and prepare for a post-COVID future which is largely unknown, notably through a plethora of Instagram Live discussions and webinars. I talked last week about Lagos Fashion Week’s Woven Threads program. I particularly liked “How to Design like an African” by This is Us’ Oroma Itegboje: “First, state a multi-purpose intent. Then, find something beautiful that has been in Africa for a long time, and use what’s around you to create. Ask lots of questions.” All is said.
MUSIC
The place to be this weekend was online (ha!) at the One World: Together at home concert, which was organized by international charity Global Citizens, Lady Gaga, the United Nations and the WHO, and had as of Sunday morning raised $127.9 million for health and essential service workers. The ginormous event ran for 8 hours and was packed with A-listers like The Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Beyonce, Lizzo, Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, LL Cool J, as well as African artists Burna Boy, Black Coffee, Cassper Nyovest, Sho Madjozi, Nomzamo Mbatha, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danai Gurira. The full video is now available on YouTube.
The forced digitalization of the live music experience is stretching the usage of existing platforms in an unprecedented way. I talked last week about how African DJs have been leveraging Instagram - which has clearly emerged as the platform of choice for all creatives seeking to transition their businesses online (more on this later). Now a group of European music industry organizations have launched the #NextStageChallenge, an online hackathon & support program to explore new solutions and business models to reshape the live experience in the digital space. The call for registration is open until April 24th, 2020.
SPORTS
The Burundi Football Federation was one of the world’s last to finally suspend local matches, two weeks after the country confirmed its first case of coronavirus. Never heard of Burundian football? Well at least now you know it exists.
Faced with a total lack of live sports, fans now only have e-sports (as we previously discussed) or content about sports to fall back on. Supersport has announced that it will now broadcast a sports film every day for the next two months. The lineup will include Jerry Maguire, Senna, Any Given Sunday, Rocky 1-5, and Invictus. Meanwhile, the 10-part documentary series The Last Dance, about Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls’ journey pursuing their sixth NBA championship, is coming to Netflix today Monday April 20th.
VISUAL ARTS
Bloom Art’s founding director and curator Ugoma Adegoke has a great piece on CNN about private art repatriation and her work guiding wealthy Nigerians who have chosen to invest in art. “In the small arts community we have in Nigeria, private ownership is crucial: private collections serve as quasi museums, and collectors are custodians that can ensure art will remain here in the long term,” she writes.
FILM
Several African documentaries have been selected as part of the lineup at Hot Docs, one of the world’s leading documentary festivals, which was originally scheduled to run from April 30th to May 10th in Toronto but has been postponed with no clear indications so far as to which new form it will take. The festival would have opened with Sam Soko’s Softie, from Kenya, which had already played Sundance earlier this year. The other selected films include I am Samuel, by Kenyan director Peter Murimi and produced by Softie’s Toni Kamau, and Zibuye - The Occupation, by South Africa’s Dylan Valley. Kenya has a long tradition of documentary filmmaking and some serious local expertise. When I first arrived in Nairobi in 2006 from CNN New York, I was impressed to meet Kenyan Reuters cameramen with impeccable editorial skills who, contrary to their CNN counterparts at the time, were perfectly capable to produce and edit their own stories. It’s been great to see Kenya’s home-grown talent making headway on the world stage recently.
BROADCAST
TV Music group Trace has launched its new channel Trace Muzika focused on Ethiopian music. Coming after Canal+ announced its plans to enter the market at the end of 2020 and more recently its signing of a partnership with Nolawi Film Production for the provision of Ethiopian films, the Trace move confirms the interest of global players for the newly-opened Ethiopian media and communications market.
But what I really want to talk about this week is Instagram. And why in the broadcast section? Well, because Instagram Live has become the new television. Between funny skits from comedians such as unlikely breakout star FatherDMW, celebrity interviews, business experts panels or webinars, ‘Battle of Hits’ between music producers, DJ sets, game shows, and workout videos (finally!), there is so much content on Instagram Live these days that it is impossible to keep up. And a lot of it is of surprisingly good quality, a measure of the technology’s progress but also of the pent-up creativity that, with nowhere else to go, is suddenly being unleashed on what has long been the creative class’ favorite platform.
According to Instagram’s owner Facebook, Instagram Live usage has doubled in the past few weeks globally. Although there is currently no direct means of monetization, some creators have begun exploring brand placements and sponsorship, and in response to this Twitter thread, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has confirmed that it was working on ways to “support creators and artists using Live”, which I find really exciting. You can already watch Instagram Live on your computer or television rather than on your phone. My own suggestion from a viewer’s perspective: we need a TV guide for all these Lives with the ability to add programs to our calendars and create reminders, and an easier way to replay what you have missed.
VOD
As Disney+ reaches 50 million global subscribers and Quibi 1.7 million downloads, the next player in the global streaming wars, NBC Universal’s Peacock, is taking flight. Peacock’s launch was scheduled to coincide with this summer’s Olympics, but with these being cancelled, it had to review its strategy. What’s interesting about Peacock is that it is an ad-supported service, which as I’ve mentioned before could eventually be a workable model for Africa. The challenge of course is that Peacock is launching at a moment when brands are cutting their ad budgets due to the crisis, with the US ad market expected to drop 13% this year. To be continued.
Meanwhile, Netflix continues to bring premium African properties to its service, with cult pantsula-themed South African TV series Tjovitjo and Nigerian much-talked-about film The Set Up coming to the platform this month. I remember the time, not so long ago, when there was no way to watch this kind of quality African content anywhere.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Two shot-in-lockdown series are coming to the world and - really interestingly - they both come from Spanish producers. First, the half hour sitcom Quarantine Diaries, which was recorded in their homes by the actors themselves, is already being released on Radio Television Espanola (RTVE). The second project, En Casa (at Home), is a Spanish anthology series from HBO Europe comprising five 15 minutes episodes of different genres produced by five different directors also from their homes. You’re going to start thinking that I bring everything back to Netflix, but I do see the influence of the streamer here, as it was Netflix that brought Spanish series to the world (with its uber-successful Casa de Papel and Elite), leading to a kind of creative renaissance in Spanish television. I believe it will have the same impact on Nigerian TV series (Nigerian films were already doing very well pre-Netflix).
But actually, the big news in content development this week is that Africa’s very own first lockdown series is here. Self-shot in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Ivory Coast, it is coming to us courtesy of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation. The 60-part MTV Shuga Alone Together mini-series is an extension of the well-known and very successful MTV Shuga brand and aims to raise awareness on COVID-19. Catch it on YouTube from today April 20th.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, director and animator Niyi Akinmolayan (who’s also behind The Set Up) has released another viral COVID-19 video, this time a lovely animation aimed at children which has already gone everywhere including on CNN. I am a huge fan of Niyi’s work and of his commitment to support his industry, and what he’s just done here is simply putting Nigerian animation on the map.
I’ll finish with this fascinating article on “the passion economy” and how new platforms allow anyone, and especially creators, to monetize unique skills. As the world is now trapped at home and glued to their screens, African artists are finding new ways to engage with and grow their audiences online. For some, the boost in numbers has been staggering. Viewers are discovering new talent, getting comfortable with new ways to consume, and hooked on new types of content. The next step will be to monetize, and we can bet that this will be solved soon.