Dear colleagues and friends,

Last week we were celebrating and this week we are mourning, both the tragic, public death of George Floyd and the slow-motion-car-crash one of a certain idea of America.

The United-States is a country I know well and where I lived for several years with my ex-husband, who happened to be a hoodie-wearing Black man. It is a country that I love but which has become increasingly impossible to defend in recent years. HUSTLE & FLOW is not the place for personal political statements, but I say a bit more here. 

The best and most humane analysis I found of last week’s “domino effect” is from Trevor Noah, a South African who knows a little something about institutionalized racism and inequality. If you haven’t done so already, watch his powerful video. While you’re at it, you should also read his memoir Born a Crime, his account of growing up as an illegal mixed-race child under apartheid. I promise you that he manages to make it funny.

Another reaction that rang true this week was British-Nigerian actor John Boyega’s emotional outburst on social media. Anger can be scary, but it is a valid and effective emotion when faced with social injustice.

It might seem trivial to be talking about investing in Entertainment when the matter at hand is one of life and death, but those of us who chose to work in the creative fields know that they have a role to play. At the very basis, racism comes from fear, which in turn comes from ignorance. When we watch a film, listen to a song, or attend a football game, what we seek is an emotional experience that connects us to other humans, through the medium of the artist or athlete, in a way that makes us feel understood. But this goes both ways. When we share these universal emotions with others, it also allows us to connect with their own experience of the world at a deep level - to know them, and thus not to fear them. We will always need more art.

This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I talk about the largely-untapped marketing power of African celebrities as brand ambassadors and legendary music label Def Jam launching in Africa, but I will also get into new areas like e-learning for the creative industries and gaming. 

Make sure to never miss an edition of HUSTLE & FLOW by subscribing here, but if you have missed one don't worry and just head over there. Finally, do connect with me by email at marie@restless.global, or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @marieloramungai, and soon in person as borders reopen.

Happy reading to all,

Marie



GLOBAL RESCUE MEASURES

The African Culture Fund (ACF) has launched its Solidarity Fund for Artists and Cultural Organizations in Africa (SOFACO) in order to support the resilience of African artists and cultural actors who have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The Fund will support activities in many different sectors and disciplines, and the deadline for applications is June 30. Launched in 2017 in Bamako, Mali, ACF aims to challenge the perception of culture as folklore and position it instead as a creative industry. ACF has raised over $3 million so far through an innovative model where the funds are sourced equally from African artists themselves and from international donors.


MOBILE

South African mobile operator MTN has been named “most loved African brand” once again in a recent consumer survey conducted in 27 countries with a representation of about 8% of the continent's population.


E-LEARNING

French e-learning startup LAFAAAC (already operational in Francophone Africa) has announced that its online training program for Nigerian creatives will launch in September in partnership with Nigerian media group Wazobia, French film school La Fémis, and the French Embassy in Nigeria. The program will combine mobile learning, masterclasses, animated tutorials, virtual classes and workshops from well-known experts, and will start with an offer on the fundamentals of screenwriting. LAFAAAC received support from the French Embassy’s Solidarity Fund for Innovative Projects which is dedicated to the development of the Nigerian cultural and creative industries. The fund aims to stimulate cultural entrepreneurship, capacity building and governance policies in the audiovisual, interactive media and cultural heritage sectors in Nigeria.

Although LAFAAAC is the first company to launch an e-learning program dedicated to the African creative industries, the space has also been attracting interest from other players, and the COVID-fueled rush to all things digital is certainly creating an enabling environment. Media group TRACE plans to launch its own TRACE Academia in 2020, while Nigeria-based EnVivo Education (co-founded by AFRIFF’s Chioma Ude) already offers the Cisco Network Academy’s and Digital Marketing Institute’s curriculums and wants to expand to filmmaking training.


VISUAL ARTS

I’ve already talked about how leading Contemporary African Art Fair 1-54 moved to an online format this year in a previous edition of HUSTLE & FLOW. The fair closed yesterday, but I thought I would still share this article from Le Point for the French-speakers among you. This year, 1-54 showcased over 600 works by more than 80 artists from Africa and the diaspora, represented by 25 international galleries.

One platform that didn’t wait for the pandemic to go online is African Digital Art (ADA), a true pioneer turned pillar of the African creative ecosystem launched by Kenyan designer and artist Jepchumba some 15 years ago. ADA is a great place to discover a wide range of creative works from audio/visual production, animation, interactive projects, web, film, graphic art and design. This week it is launching a series of interviews with digital artists from across the globe about “their process, ethos, and ways of imagining future possibilities.”


E-COMMERCE

DHL is the logistics partner of choice for African fashion designers because of its substantial efforts in recent years to enable Africa-based vendors to ship their products across the continent and the world for a reasonable price. DHL is now doubling down on its commitment to African e-commerce through a strategic investment in Link Commerce, the UK-based e-commerce platform that has helped DHL develop its successful DHL Africa eShop platform.


FASHION

First, a shout out to two HUSTLE & FLOW favorites making waves this week in the global fashion world: Sarah Diouf‘s Tongoro is launching on prestigious French retailer Printemps’ online platform, while Lagos Fashion Week founder Omoyemi Akerele joins the Commonwealth Fashion Council board. Well-deserved congratulations to both.

Then, the Business of Fashion has an in-depth article this week about the marketing power of African Brand Ambassadors, which I recommend you read in full (careful with the numbers in there though, Lionheart was definitely NOT acquired by Netflix for $3 million). Although “celebrity marketing has fallen out of favour during the pandemic, when the strategy makes a comeback global brands need to act fast to tap more African influencers to access high-growth markets like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa,” writes BOF. The article mentions examples such as South African Queen Sono star Pearl Thusi, who recently became the face of MAC cosmetics’ new MAC X Pearl collection, and Nigerian music heavyweight Wizkid, who successfully collaborated with Nike two years ago to create a quickly sold-out Starboy jersey. Nollywood stars would be natural marketing partners for global brands seeking to enter Nigeria, although, as Lagos-based Redrick PR's Ijeoma Balogun justly says, most celebrities would be considered too mass market to appeal to luxury consumers there. Brands targeting that segment should rather look at peer-to-peer influence from other high-net-worth individuals working in the creative industries as a more effective marketing strategy. The article doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of launching luxury brands on the continent, which include of course the lack of retail and digital infrastructure. However, the opportunity remains for those willing to “spend the time understanding the culture and the people before entering the market,” says Endeavor Chief Marketing Officer Bozoma Saint John. That is why I usually recommend starting with a customized market study and on-the-ground visit to my clients who are new to Africa - not all of them take the advice.

Finally, the African Development Bank’s Fashionomics initiative is launching its webinar series this Tuesday with a first session on “Thriving in a (post-) COVID-19 World”. Sign up here.


MUSIC

The top African Entertainment news of the week is Universal Music Group’s announcement of the launch of its iconic Def Jam division in Johannesburg and Lagos, with a focus on "hip-hop, Afrobeats and trap talent in Africa." Contrary to the US, where Universal operates different labels with their own DNA such as Republic, Interscope, or Capitol, in Africa it had so far been reduced to the Universal Music brand. “What Def Jam Africa allows us to do is create an aspirational label,” says Universal Music Sub-Saharan Africa managing director Sipho Dlamini. Def Jam Africa launches with a roster that includes South Africa's Nasty C, Boity, Cassper Nyovest, Nadia Nakai, Tshego, Tellaman and Ricky Tyler, and Nigeria's Larry Gaaga and Vector. 

Not to be undone, Apple Music announced its new weekly show, Africa Now Radio with Cuppy, hosted by Nigerian DJ Cuppy and showcasing "the latest African sounds, be it amapiano, afrobeats, highlife, alte, house, hip-hop, afrobongo, or kuduro”. The show premiered yesterday and can be accessed here.

Meanwhile, Davido's "Fall" continues to break records three years after its release and was certified gold in the US and Canada this week with 800,000 and 40,000 sales respectively. In 2018, the video for "Fall" became the most streamed Nigerian music video on YouTube. It currently stands at 169 million views on the platform.


LET'S CALL IT LIVE DANCE PERFORMANCE

Besides live music concerts, another casualty of the COVID-19 lockdown has been Lagos' normally bustling strip club industry. But innovative nightclub owners, and in some cases the strippers themselves, have come up with a solution: raunchy private house parties. This makes complete sense in a city where money can buy you a private experience for everything from film screenings, to concerts, to fashion shopping and styling, and where specifically catering for that customer segment is a revenue stream in many business models.


SPORTS

I was able to catch some of the sessions of last week’s Future of Sports conference organized by the Africa Sports Ventures Group, which brought together prominent speakers such as Liberian President and former World Footballer of the Year George Weah. Of particular interest was the discussion on unlocking value from popular  traditional sports such as Senegalese wrestling, also known as Laamb. According to Senegal’s Presidential Advisor on Youth and Sports Ndongo N’Diaye, wrestling is even more popular in the country than football, with big competition nights drawing crowds of up to 25,000 fans and prize money for fights reaching $16 million in 2016. And this type of traditional wrestling does not just happen in Senegal but in all Sahel countries. It is called Dambe in northern Nigeria or Boreh in The Gambia, for example. Years ago I filmed a story on Nuba wrestling while stuck in Khartoum for two weeks waiting for an elusive visa to Darfour. It was a scene straight out of Gladiator. And who doesn’t like Gladiator?

Moving from sand pits to pixels and bit rates, eSport promoters are now looking to expand across the continent, boosted by lockdown-fueled growth in South Africa. With a global audience expected to rise to 495 million with revenues up to $1.1 billion by the end of 2020, and market conditions across Africa now resembling China’s and India’s some five years ago, industry players such as Nodwin Gaming (investors in Global eSports), believe that the time is right.


FILM

The Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) has shared some numbers about the estimated impact of the pandemic on Nigeria’s film industry. Over 5,000 cinema employees (of which 75% are youths between ages 18 to 25) have been furloughed or fired since theaters were shut down more than two months ago. Some 4,000 indirect jobs (retail vendors, logistics companies, film distributors, security men, gardeners, housekeepers, etc) have also been impacted. The complete shutdown of the country’s prolific film production sector, which can employ up to 100 people per project, may have led to the loss of another 40,000 jobs. In total, CEAN estimates that “the general loss in revenue from the creative industry is about [$52 million], with approximately 250,000 jobs at stake.” 

That’s certainly depressing news. More optimistic is Nigerian film exhibitors’ experimentations with drive-in cinema, which has seen a revival in other countries hit by lockdown measures. 7Eleven Entertainment was set to offer Lagosians their first drive-in cinema experience last weekend at The Lekki Coliseum, while a previous attempt in Abuja had to be aborted and rescheduled due to the heavy downpour. A few bold Nigerian filmmakers have also decided to resume shooting with reduced teams, such as on the TV series Meadows currently in production in Abuja, although no official greenlight has been given for film sets to reopen.

On the other side of the continent, the Kenya Film Commission (KFC) is rolling out its plan to cushion the country’s film sector from massive job losses by providing funding worth $940 per project to two short films in all of Kenya’s 47 counties. Meanwhile, Kenyan documentaries continue to perform well on the international stage, with Just A Band, a film about the trendy house/funk/disco Kenyan music group of the same name co-directed by the Canadian Anjali Nayar and Kenyan Mbithi Masya (also a member of the group), winning the second prize of the First Look Pitch Prize at this year’s Hot Doc Forum Festival.


BROADCAST

Still in Kenya, rival television stations K24 (owned by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Mediamax Network) and KTN News (owned by The Standard Group) are set to work together on the first deal of its kind in Kenya. As part of the arrangement, K24 would scrap its own news programming to carry the one produced by KTN. Mediamax would also close down Kameme TV, its vernacular television station. Mediamax Network’s restructuring is motivated by the shrinking in advertising revenue due to the pandemic. This might be the first event in a consolidation wave to hit the African broadcast sector.


VOD

WarnerMedia’s Netflix competitor HBO Max launched last week in the US, and according to news coverage, it was either “a mess” or “a disaster”. According to Engadget, “Confusion and HBO Max practically go hand-in-hand. (...) So it's no wonder the collective response to HBO Max on social media has simply been: "Huh?" But here's the thing: These missteps won't matter in the long run. This isn't a Quibi situation, a fundamentally flawed service that has no place in the current media landscape.” As you may have gathered by now, I do love a snarky VOD insider review, especially if it includes a side jab at Quibi. The reason why HBO Max can still succeed is because it is the exclusive home for some extremely valuable content (such as Friends, South Park, and the entire HBO catalog). But it will have to fix its distribution, pricing, marketing, and the absurd cohabitation with HBO Now and HBO Go - so basically every single aspect of its product besides content. However, I hear that they are already looking for an African series, so I wish them all the best (we need them).


ANIMATION

The little novelty of the day is the “first animated series from The Gambia” produced by the family-owned and women-led Fyen network. The series, which stars characters such as Princess Halima, Bakary on Safari and Samba and Batch, was apparently 13 years in the making - yes, I know that struggle.


GAMING

And to finish this week, there is some good news for Africa’s video games industry: gaming development startup Carry1st has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by CRE Venture Capital. Adding some other money previously raised, Carry1st now has $4 million to deploy in game publishing across Africa. The startup has already launched two games as direct downloads from its site, Hyper! and Carry1st Trivia, which the company says was the number one game in Nigeria and Kenya for most of the year with about 1.5 million downloads. Carry1st’s ambition is to become the top gaming content publisher in Africa, which means not only developing African games but also serving as distributor for international gaming content into the continent. Now, I’ve always been puzzled by the discrepancy between the enormous revenue numbers reported for the African gaming industry ($570 million in 2018?) and the fact that I don't know any local gaming studio or developer, including the ones constantly touted by the press, that is thriving. In fact, many have folded and those who survive do so by producing graphic design and animations for corporate clients. Could this be a case of media-driven hype based on a serious dose of wishful thinking? How is the "African gaming sector" actually defined? Do these mysterious numbers also include sports betting, online gambling or premium SMS voting on Big Brother Naija? Where is the money actually being made? If that $570 million is just leaving Africa, then that doesn’t count. If you have that information, please educate me!