Dear colleagues and friends,

Here on HUSTLE & FLOW we’ve been tracking the winds of change that are currently sweeping the global Black creative world, and this week the tempest has settled on Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is a beautiful, schizophrenic country where both the literacy and the formal unemployment rate are at 90%. Former president Robert Mugabe, who passed away less than a year ago, is widely credited for both. What is clear is that his death has so far not magically fixed Zimbabwe, which is currently suffering its worst economic crisis in more than 10 years.

Last week, seven babies were stillborn at Harare Central Hospital after urgent treatment was delayed. Nurses are on strike because of a lack of COVID-19 PPE, and the maternity wards were overwhelmed. The health minister has been sacked over allegations of corruption, as the country struggles with (another) bout of hyperinflation. Three days ago, award-winning author Tsitsi Dangarembga was arrested while protesting this whole mess, ironically just as her latest novel entered the longlist for the prestigious Booker Prize. And because this is 2020, you know there must be more: this is also the week that current President Emmerson Mnangagwa chose to sign an agreement worth $3.5 billion to compensate white farmers evicted from their land in the early 2000s. This is next-level bad timing.

We root for Zimbabwe to find its way out of this quagmire so that the country’s numerous artists and intellectuals can share their talents with the world. But despite all of this, there is no shortage of good news this week. In this edition of HUSTLE & FLOW, I talk about the vibrancy of contemporary Ethiopian art, as the country liberalizes in fits and starts; the (unjustified) controversy over Beyonce’s Black is King visual album; and the return of ESPN to the African airwaves. But you’ll also read about Ivorian chocolate, Nigerian curling, and Multichoice’s and Canal+’s first co-production.

If you are new to HUSTLE & FLOW, visit the archives here to catch up on current trends and opportunities in African Entertainment, and don’t forget to subscribe. To drop me a note, comment, suggestion, or correction, email me at marie@restless.global or reach out on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram @marieloramungai.

Happy reading to all,

Marie

INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE

Facebook’s investments in infrastructure and connectivity in Africa will increase internet traffic by 9%, contributing an extra $57 billion to Africa's economy by 2024, according to a recent report by Analysys Mason. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa will benefit the most due to the presence of Facebook's Points of Presence connecting ISPs directly to Facebook's internal network. Most notably and as we’ve discussed here before, Facebook is one of the investors behind the $1 billion 2Africa subsea internet cable project, which will link 16 African countries to Europe and the Middle East and triple the current capacity. 

Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa is seeking buyers for 20% to 34% of Liquid Telecom for as much as $600 million. He needs the money to repay a $375 million loan backed by Public Investment Corp that was used to fund Masiyiwa’s failed pay-TV venture Kwese TV (more on this further down in this edition).

Ethiopia resumed full internet connection on July 23 after a 23-day hiatus, and ordinary Ethiopians can now access the internet again. Ironically, that latest internet shutdown came just weeks after Ethiopia’s Council of Ministers approved its digital strategy to boost tech services exports and digitize the country’s economy, which has been growing by more than 9% annually for the past decade. Besides costing the country hundreds of million of dollars, the regular shutdowns are hampering the efforts of Ethiopian tech entrepreneurs to establish Addis Ababa as one of Africa’s major tech hubs. As foreign investors are waiting in the starting blocks to get a piece of this new market of 109 million people, Ethiopia is demonstrating once again that economic and political liberalization is anything but a smooth process. 


MOBILE

Airtel Africa has reported a 6.9% jump in revenues to $851 million in the second quarter of 2020, with mobile money and data recording the most uptick. Over the period, Airtel’s subscribers grew by 11.5% to 111,5 million users throughout the continent. 

Zimbabwean authorities are asking EcoCash, the country’s biggest mobile money platform, to share 2020 transaction data with law enforcement, in a move that the operator says violates its user data privacy rights. The government is alleging that EcoCash is allowing money-laundering activities on its network that are fueling street market foreign currency rates. The Zimbabwean government has been locked in a battle with EcoCash for several months as its currency and economic crisis has spiraled out of control. 


E-COMMERCE

The fast convergence of fintech and e-commerce, clearly a major trend of 2020, continues. Dubai’s Network International has acquired DPO Group, a digital payments company and e-commerce platform, for $288 million. DPO facilitates online payments for some 47,000 merchants in 19 African countries, with South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania being its largest markets. The 15-year-old company, which has largely been flying below the radar, quietly racked up $16 million in revenues in 2019. Just three months ago it launched its e-commerce solution DOP Store, in partnership with Mastercard, initially targeting essential services such as supermarkets, food stores, pharmacies and chemists. 

Meanwhile, Vodacom South Africa is entering the super app game, in partnership with the Chinese Alipay which will act as the technology provider. The operator is planning to create and launch a financial services app that will allow users to stream music, access news, shop online, pay bills and transfer money. The service, which is set to be launched next year, will also assist small and medium scale enterprises to access lending, insurance and other financial services. 

Finally and still on the hot topic of super apps, TechCabal has a very interesting article about OPay’s billionaire Chairman Yahui Zhou, who stepped in as CEO in April and is reportedly behind the recent decision to shut down several of the company’s transport verticals in Nigeria to double down on e-commerce. Four months ago, the company claimed it had 5 million monthly active customers and was responsible for over 60% of mobile money transactions in Nigeria. 


FASHION

Seven African fashion designers talk about the impact of the pandemic on their work in Vogue Italia (Google Translate is your friend here). Interestingly, the designers report little impact from the cancellation of fashion weeks on their business, as most were able to effectively leverage social media to promote their collections. A few even reported an increase in sales over the period. As Vogue Business writes, African designers have turned to establishing their own direct businesses online to make up for retail store closures. Before the pandemic, only the biggest designer brands had websites, and those were targeted at the global customer, while African fashion customers had previously been wary of shopping solely online for fashion due to a cultural preference for physical interactions, a lack of trust in online solutions, and restrictions in delivery. But the lockdowns have led to a fast, deep and long-lasting shift in customer behavior which, I believe, will eventually prove wildly beneficial for the sector.


VISUAL ARTS

British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare shares the vision behind his Guest Artists Space (G.A.S) Foundation in Quartz Africa this week. I’ve talked a couple times about Shonibare’s upcoming artists residency spaces, scheduled to open in Lagos and Ijebu, Nigeria in 2021. G.A.S Foundation will host three artists at a time from various disciplines for three months, offering opportunities for emerging local talents to grow their skills and visibility as well as network with their peers. Shonibare’s project also aims to facilitate social and cultural change by supporting the needs of the local community through job creation and food security. “Social interventions are a part of my practice. They’re not separate from my art,” he says. In recent years, Nigeria’s contemporary art scene has gained global recognition. However, few state-funded educational facilities exist to support creatives. Like it is usual in Nigeria, private individuals - and in this case the more established artists themselves - are stepping up to fill the gap. 

One rare example of a government-led cultural initiative is the refurbishment of Togo’s Palais de Lomé, which was inaugurated with great fanfare in November 2019. The former Palace of Governors, a symbol of French colonial power, was transformed by director Sonia Lawson into an ambitious and innovative art center open to all, celebrating culture and nature. The Togolese government distinguished itself by financing the entire project to the tune of $4 million (3,5 million euros). Lawson counts on sponsorships and donations to make the project sustainable.  

Moving from West to East Africa, CNN has an in-depth feature this week about Ethiopian contemporary art, which may finally be having its moment on the global stage. Although Ethiopia’s art lineage dates back to 4th century church paintings, the local art community had largely been cut off from the rest of the world until current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed started opening the country. One fascinating consequence of this isolation is that local art practices have had time to develop unaffected by global trends, allowing Ethiopian artists to create their own distinct language. The same could be said of Ethiopian cinema and music, about which I plan to talk more in future editions of HUSTLE & FLOW. Now, the local art scene is booming, with the launch of new art spaces and artists branching out beyond painting to experiment with other disciplines. Of course, international collectors are also starting to notice, so now is the time to go shopping while it is still affordable.


LITERATURE 

British-Nigerian writer, Irenosen Okojie, is this year's prestigious AKO Caine Prize winner for her short story Grace Jones. It tells the story of Sidra, an impersonator of the legendary 70s and 80s musician, who is keeping some dark secrets. 

As I mentioned in introduction, Zimbabwean literary giant Tsitsi Dangarembga’s third novel This Mournable Body has been selected in the latest Booker Prize longlist, alongside Ethiopian-born Maaza Mengiste's The Shadow King. This Mournable Body reflects on the volatile political landscape in Zimbabwe through the life of female protagonist Tambu, picking up 30 years later from Dangarembga's seminal work, Nervous Conditions. Mengiste’s The Shadow King revisits the Italian-Ethiopian war under Mussolini's reign. 


FOOD

Former banker turned chocolatier Axel Emmanuel has been selected as one of 50 finalists to the African Business Heroes prize 2020. The entrepreneurship competition, an initiative of the Jack Ma Foundation, received 22,000 applications from across Africa. Emmanuel describes his 2012 epiphany, which led him to change careers: “I saw the big transactions of cocoa and thought it’s fine to export cocoa, but not all of it. Two million tonnes of cocoa are exported from the Ivory Coast every year to big companies like Nestlé. It’s absurd. More than 75% of the world’s cocoa comes from Africa, and there were almost no local brands of chocolate.” Emmanuel’s company Le Chocolatier Ivoirien now distributes more than 100 chocolate flavors in local supermarkets, airlines, and other outlets, employing a team of 10. He’s now looking for investors to open a factory (and, I’m guessing, wouldn’t say no to partners who could get him into Wholefoods or Monoprix).


MUSIC

Beyonce’s highly anticipated Black is King, the visual companion to the singer’s 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift, was released last Friday on Disney+, DSTV and Canal+. The 90-min film sees Beyonce narrate and guide a young African king on a journey of love, betrayal, and understanding the importance of his history. A perfectly-timed reclamation of Black power and heritage, Queen B’s latest production still managed to stir up controversy as some African critics complained about perceived cultural appropriation from the American star. Personally I find myself resolutely on the pro-Bey camp here. Beyonce and her team clearly put in the time and care to curate the dozen African artists who collaborated with her on the project, offering them a massive platform to showcase their work in the process. Besides featuring Afrobeats stars such as Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Mr Eazi or Yemi Alade, alongside appearances by Lupita Nyong’o or dancers from the DWP Academy in Ghana, Black is King also makes references to Dogon and Yoruba cultures, and includes the work of African designers such as Ivory Coast-based Loza Maléombho. The very secret production was shot all over the globe including in South and West Africa. It was codirected by Kwasi Fordjour, creative director at Beyoncé's Parkwood Entertainment, alongside African directors Emmanuel Adjei, Blitz Bazawule (The Burial of Kojo), Pierre Debusschere, Jenn Nkiru, Ibra Ake (Atlanta), Dikayl Rimmasch, Jake Nava and Dafe Oboro.

In a new milestone of the genre’s journey to global domination, Afrobeats is getting its first-ever official singles chart in the UK. The move by the UK's Official Charts Company recognizes Afrobeats’ rising popularity in the UK and growing influence on popular culture across the globe. The new Top 20 weekly rundown will pull data from downloads, physical sales and audio and video streaming, and the playlist will be published every Sunday on Spotify.

Meanwhile, a new player is entering the now crowded Nigeria streaming market (which already counts Boomplay, Apple Music, Deezer, UduX, Spotify, SoundCloud and MTN MusicTime), as music streaming and discovery service Audiomack opens a new office in Lagos. According to the 8-year-old company, “when you look at majority English-speaking countries, [Nigeria is] second after the United States. Since most of the artists we have are English speaking, it makes practical sense to see Nigeria as a growth opportunity both for Audiomack and all of the artists who upload their music to the platform.” 

Moving over to the Francophone side, Universal Music Africa has launched Def Jam Music fr, which will focus on artists from Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Senegal. To bring this news into context, the label’s parent company Vivendi stated in its 2019 annual report that local artists (meaning artists from a certain territory selling in that same territory) accounted for 61% of UMG’s revenues last year - a strong incentive for the music giant to continue investing in its African operations. However African diaspora artists are also extremely popular in France. In fact, Franco-Malian singer Aya Nakamura is the most listened to artist in France on Spotify, where she accumulates more than 12 million listeners per month and dethrones male superstars Booba, PNL and JuL by far.


SPORTS

This week we’re doing a little tour of lesser-known sports in Africa. The first one is freestyle football, which is described by the World Freestyle Football Association (WFFA) as “the art and sport of juggling a football using all parts of the body to entertain audiences and outperform opponents; a fusion of tricks with a ball, dance and music.” Sports tricks + dance + music = a perfect African product (just add TikTok). Freestyle football was launched in Africa and Nigeria in 2017 by business leader and philanthropist Valentine Ozigbo, the Chairman of Feet ‘N’ Tricks International. In 2019, some 30 countries converged in Nigeria for the African Freestyle championships, sponsored by StarTimes. Ivorian Abdoul Titi Kone won for a second time. This year, the competition took place virtually, sponsored by MTN, and saw reigning Nigeria champions Benjamin Ebong and Augustina Unamba retain their titles.

A lot more unexpected is the slow but steady development of... curling in Africa. OkayAFrica has an offbeat article about a small group of die-hard diasporan fans trying to bring the winter sport to Nigeria, despite the unlikely climate. In 2018, Damola and Henrietta Daniel set up the Nigeria Curling Federation (NCF), which became the first African member association of the World Curling Federation. They recruited team members from the diaspora to participate in events in Norway, Scotland, China and Austria. NCF has a five-year plan to create 100 teams to breed competition in the country and has purchased land for the first ice rink in Nigeria in Calabar, partnering with ISS, a German firm renowned for making ice rinks across the world. Estimated at $6.9 million, the facility could become the home of ice sports in the country. In true Nigerian fashion, nothing is too big for the Daniels who dream of representing Africa at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, in the company of the Nigerian bobsled and skeleton athletes who've pioneered winter sports in Africa. 


BROADCAST

ESPN is back on on Dstv across Africa. Two 24-hour channels, ESPN and ESPN2, will feature every major US sport, including the NBA, NFL, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball, plus live football from the English Football League, Scottish Premier Football League, Dutch Eredivisie and Major League Soccer, as well as local sports including the Cup of Nations and boxing tournaments. ESPN’s courtship with the African market has been through several twists and turns over the past few years. In 2013, the channel had pulled its content away from Dstv as part of a decision to end operations in non-American markets that were considered to be no longer financially viable. A couple years later in 2016, the sports channel struck a licensing partnership with pay TV and VOD upstart Kwese TV (mentioned earlier in this newsletter), an ambitious initiative by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa’s Econet Media to compete with Dstv. However, barely 18 months after its launch, Kwese TV shut down (a classic case of overspending in small markets with tiny margins) and Econet Media went into administration. ESPN had been looking for a new Africa home since then.

Multichoice’s SuperSport and the Spanish La Liga have renewed their broadcast deal for another two years, up until the 2023/24 season, in all languages except Arabic and French. Multichoice has also announced that the number of its movie channels will be reduced from the existing six (M-Net Movies Premiere, Action Plus, Action, Smile, Zone and All-Stars) to four, which will simply be called M-Net Movies 1, 2, 3, and 4 moving forward. A little note here as I know this is extremely confusing: Dstv, Multichoice, SuperSport, Mnet and Showmax are all part of the same group. There are some subtleties (cable operator vs commercial channel bouquet vs individual channels vs VOD platform) but for the sake of simplification you can just consider them one and the same.

Canal+ will launch Ethiopia’s first premium DTH platform at the beginning of 2021, in partnership with satellite operator Eutelsat. The pay TV offer will launch with 50 premium channels and a selection of Ethiopia’s Free-to-Air channels. This is the second partnership announced by Canal+ this month for the continent, following news of a deal with African utilities firm Bboxx. Still in Ethiopia, Indian Zee TV has rolled out a new channel in Amharic called Zee Alem. This brings Zee TV’s total number of channels in Africa to eight, airing mainly Bollywood entertainment and series in different languages across the African continent. 


FILM

Film festival roundup: For the first time in twenty years, an Ivorian feature film will compete at the Venice International Film Festival taking place in September, as Philippe Lacôte’s La Nuit des Rois is one of the 19 titles selected in the Orizzonti section. Lacôte’s first feature Run was selected at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2014. Thirty-one film projects from 13 African countries were selected by the Durban FilmMart Institute to take part in its Finance Forum from 4 to 13 September, and 5 African film projects have been awarded grants in the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund’s latest funding round. Finally, seventeen producers will take part in the inaugural Creative Producer Indaba scheme, which has been developed by Realness Institute in partnership with Sundance Institute, International Film Festival Rotterdam and European training outfit EAVE. 

South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is examining a number of propositions to help and support the film industry in South Africa as it battles the impact of the pandemic. One of the initiatives is the call for fundable proposals that will see the revival of drive-in cinema. And still in South Africa, Netflix has partnered with the South African Screen Federation and the Independent Producers Organisation, to establish a Covid-19 film and television relief fund that will provide emergency relief to the hardest-hit workers in South Africa's creative community. The streaming service will donate about $400,000 from the global $150 million hardship fund it had announced in March.


VOD

Talking about Netflix, a couple recent interviews provide more information on the platform’s inner workings in Africa for those of you out there trying to crack the code: Ife Idowu, the Licensing and Contracts Manager at FilmOne Entertainment, the largest distributor of Nigerian content to Netflix, shares his experience selling to the platform, while Netflix Africa Originals Manager Dorothy Ghettuba speaks to CNN about developing content in Africa during the pandemic.

Only the second global VOD platform to launch across the continent, the British BritBox has announced that it will expand its service to be accessible from Africa. BritBox is a joint venture between the BBC (via the BBC Studios) and ITV. According to Britbox, the Africa move is part of a global extension drive to expand its service to other parts of the world from its current markets of Britain, Canada and the United States. 


CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

Despite the major progress brought about by the arrival of Netflix on the continent, the distribution and monetization of African content remains a challenge, especially for non-English language productions. Alain Modot, founder of distribution company Diffa (who recently brought the company back from previous owner Lagardère Studio), brings a Franco-centric perspective to the matter in this interview. According to Modot, Diffa now represents about 140 producers from 35 African countries, including around 15 Ivorians. He praises Ivory Coast as the only country in Francophone West Africa with a clear audiovisual policy, mostly executed through Fonsic, a European fund managed by the Ivorian Ministry of Culture and intended to support not only Ivorian films but also pan-African and Afro-European co-productions.


CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

Pan-African pay TV leaders Multichoice and Canal+ have joined forces for the first time to co-produce an ambitious epic series called Blood Psalms. Inspired by a Xhosa legend, it tells the story of Zazi, a fierce African queen who battles a world-ending prophecy to lead her people through complexities, politics and endless wars. The 10-episode series will be available to stream on Multichoice’s VOD platform Showmax in 2021. This groundbreaking collaboration is a major development for the African TV space as it will pave the way for much larger production budgets for TV series. 

And to wrap up this week, we take a look across the Atlantic, where African and diaspora creatives continue to collect accolades and high-profile projects. While Issa Rae, Yvonne Orji, Trevor Noah and Uzo Aduba all received Emmy nominations, Kenya’s Wanuri Kahiu has come on board to direct Once On This Island, a feature adaptation of the 1990 Broadway musical based on the Rosa Guy novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl, for Disney+. One must wonder where she will find the time as Kahiu is also developing an adaptation of the YA novel The Thing About Jellyfish for Universal, and an adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed for Amazon. Another exciting announcement comes from former Netflix exec Erik Barmack, who has teamed up with renowned “Afro-French” (her term) artist Nicholle Kobi on Queens, a high-concept, stylish animated series about six extraordinary real-life African queens. Barmack and Kobi are also in development on La Femme Noire, an animated Sex and the City-type animated series for ViacomCBS-owned BET.