Dear colleagues and friends,

For the past few days, the African film community has been mobilizing to demand the immediate release of Sudanese filmmaker hajooj kuka (he does not capitalize his name) who was arrested in Khartoum last week and sentenced to two months in prison on charges of “public annoyance.” 

Kuka and five other artists-activists (Duaa Tarig Mohamed Ahmed, Abdel Rahman Mohamed Hamdan, Ayman Khalaf Allah Mohamed Ahmed, and Ahmed Elsadig Ahmed Hammad) were arrested following an attack by religious militants on the Civic Lab, where they were creating art for community engagement.

Kuka’s films Beats of the Antonov and aKasha have premiered at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, and the filmmaker was admitted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year. A couple days ago, kuka was beaten in prison and his dreadlocks were partially shaved. Is this how you know that you are having an impact?

More information, as well as instructions on how to contact Sudanese Embassies to demand the artists’ release, can be found on Twitter at #ReleaseTheArtistsSudan.

This week, The Economist is the latest major global publication to wake up to the fact that “African entertainers are wowing global audiences”. I’ll continue to show you how in this edition of HUSTLE & FLOW, as I talk about Facebook opening its second African office in Lagos; leading Nigerian distributor FilmOne inking a deal with Disney; and Trace Group acquiring South African prodco Okuhle Media. But you’ll also read about African fashion influencers, Congolese antics including a museum heist, Patrice Lumumba’s tooth, opposing views of African literature, women kicking ass in sports, and the latest Netflix moves.

If you are new to HUSTLE & FLOW, you can catch up on previous editions and subscribe at www.restless.global/hustleflow. For the loyal readers among you, please continue to send your comments, questions or corrections at marie@restless.global.

Happy reading to all,


Marie



MOBILE

Despite the current global economic slowdown, Africa - and especially Nigeria - continues to see massive growth in mobile services subscriptions, according to the newly released Ericsson Mobility Report. The second quarter of 2020 saw an increase of 12 million new subscribers across the continent, with 6 million coming from Nigeria, bringing the total number of mobile subscribers in the country to 184 million. Meanwhile, subscriber numbers have flattened-out or even dipped in North America, South America and Europe over the same period.

New plot twist in the saga of Ethiopia’s telecommunications sector privatization: the country has now announced that it would only be pursuing a "partial privatization of Ethio Telecom and the allocation of two new telecom licenses", with a completion date now reset to February 2021. The new sharing model for Ethio Telecom would maintain the Ethiopian government as a majority shareholder with a 55% stake, while 5% would be made available to Ethiopian citizens and 40% only to international investors.


DIGITAL MEDIA

Growth markets investor Platform Capital has announced its investment in Nigeria’s digital media group Big Cabal Media (BCM), publisher of tech news website TechCabal and youth-oriented Zikoko, and owner of the Cabal Creative Studio. According to BCM, its content reaches over 3 million people every month. Digital media is a very tough space in Africa as you need large volumes of in-country traffic (not traffic diluted across the continent) to monetize (mainly) through advertising, and are also competing directly with global social media behemoths-turned content publishers such as Facebook, Google/Youtube and others. Due to its size, strong local culture, and digital-savvy audience, Nigeria - where other notable players include Ringier’s Pulse, BellaNaija and Linda Ikeji - may be the only sub-saharan market where that model even makes sense today from an investment perspective.  


SOCIAL MEDIA

That certainly is not news to Facebook, which has announced that it would open a full office in Lagos in the second half of 2021 to house teams from sales, policy, communications and engineering. Facebook is thus confirming its commitment to Africa’s largest internet market, after opening a hub space in partnership with Co-Creation Hub in 2018. A “shrewd move”, according to Quartz, as Africa’s population is expected to triple by 2100 and Nigeria is set to become the second most populous country in the world, ahead of China (and after India), which in itself is mind-boggling.


FASHION

One of my favorite destinations for African fashion, Industrie Africa, has an interesting article this week on the challenges that Africa’s influencer industry faces as it navigates its growth. From being underpaid by global brands, the difficulty of promoting local designers focused on couture when customers want affordable ready-to-wear, to the opportunity of becoming the spokespersons for Africa’s sustainable approach to fashion, the influencer model currently being invented by African creatives may end up looking very different from its western counterpart.

Not an influencer per se but definitely influential is creative director and stylist Daniel Obasi, who at only 25-year-old has already shot portraits for the New York Times and Billboard, styled fashion editorials for Vogue Portugal and Dazed, and worked on Beyonce’s Black is King. Obasi, who uses fashion, photography and film, “combines the traditional, the contemporary and the imaginary to create a Nigeria freed from the political and social limitations of reality”. His name is now popping up everywhere, and it is pretty safe to say that he is destined for great things.


DESIGN

This may be the first time that I highlight an African home ware line in HUSTLE & FLOW, but with the strong pandemic-induced trend towards nesting and home improvement, it would make sense for more African designers to explore that space. Siafu Home is an ethical Kenyan-made home ware line that was born out of a collaboration between Kenyan jewelry designer Gladys Macharia and Niccola Milnes, a Canadian who sells the collection from her Vermont home. Working with artisans using local techniques and upcycled materials, Siafu’s ambition is to “break away from the mold of trying to be too ethnic or too European, to create a well-balanced symmetry that is true to traditional forms and borrows inspiration from art and tribes, but the translation and execution is done in a way that allows people from all cultures, all backgrounds to appreciate it.” 


VISUAL ARTS

French daily Le Monde continues its active coverage of the (francophone) African creative space with a look at Ivory Coast’s growing contemporary art scene. Although quantitative studies are lacking, professionals report encouraging signs pointing at a developing market, such as the growth of contemporary art venues in Abidjan (there are now around ten), the occasional or permanent return of leading Ivorian artists from the diaspora (such as Ouattara Watts, Jems Robert Koko Bi, or Ernest Dükü), and the widening of the circle of local buyers and collectors to a new generation of 30 and 40-somethings with significant purchasing power.

Le Monde also has a nice portrait of Cheri Samba, the iconic Congolese painter whose work’s humorous and naive style belies a biting social commentary. "Don't admire me just to please me. It can lead to my downfall. Admire me or my work only if I deserve it," says an inscription on the floor of his Kinshasa house. His new painting entitled Merci, merci je suis dans la zone verte (Thank you, thank you, I’m in the green zone), referring to the Paris area post-confinement, is currently on show at the Parisian gallery Magnin-A in the Kings of Kin exhibition. Unfortunately, and ironically, Paris has now been reclassified as a red zone once again.


HERITAGE

In another bout of central African political humor, anti-colonial Congolese activist Mwazulu Diyabanza and other protesters briefly stole an African funeral statue from the Afrika Museum in Nijmegen, Netherlands. They streamed their effort on Facebook, announcing that they were "reclaiming" colonial-era artwork, and were promptly arrested and the statue returned to the museum. This was not the first time that Diyabanza (also known for his vocal opposition to the CFA franc) was making his point. Last June, he and four other militants from the Unity Dignity Courage (UDC) movement were apprehended at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris as they tried to make off with a 19th-century African funeral pole. Later in the same month, Diyabanza was arrested again for a similar offense in Marseilles. I’m always a sucker for a good creative political protest, but Diyabanza’s aggressive techniques may have appeared slightly overkill to the Director of the Africa Museum, who said that the museum indeed owned looted art, and that "we have already said that we are in favor of returning stolen artifacts."

Believe it or not, this is nothing compared to the story of the tooth of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, which Belgian prosecutors have just ruled would be handed back to his relatives, after a court dispute that lasted several years. Lumumba became the newly independent Congo's first prime minister in 1960 when he was just 34 years old. But after a military coup and the rise of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Lumumba was arrested, jailed, and assassinated by separatists (with the probable involvement of Belgium and the CIA). Lumumba's body is said to have been dismembered and dissolved with acid, in an apparent attempt to keep any grave from becoming a pilgrimage site. The tooth was allegedly pulled from his corpse during the effort and taken to Belgium by a man whose family then kept it for more than half a century. Yes, this sounds like a movie, and hopefully it will eventually become one, as several Lumumba biopics are currently in the works.


LITERATURE

Twenty-one-years-old Nigerian English Lit student Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is the literary world new wunderkind after landing a million-dollar book deal in the US for her first novel, high-school thriller Ace of Spades. Already scheduled for publication in 2021 by the UK publishing house Usborne, the book was snapped up this week, along with a second novel, by American imprint Macmillan for the seven-figure sum. Meanwhile, it’s the “rentrée littéraire” in France and Le Monde is highlighting a selection of new books from African authors. No sign of juicy Young Adult fiction here - it’s all about very serious, and quite dry, political statements about colonization, migration, and apartheid. A very clear illustration indeed of two very different markets, visions of Africa, and approaches to literature.


MUSIC

Afrobeats queen Tiwa Savage released her new and fifth album Celia 3 weeks ago to… deafening silence. Sure, there are the collabs with international artists Sam Smith, Davido, Stefflon Don and Naira Marley, the Black is King appearance, the glowing review in OkayAfrica, and even the in-depth New York Times profile. But, there is no buzz, no chatter on social media, where it’s all about Savage’s male colleagues Burna Boy, Davido, or Mr Eazi, and about South Africa’s viral hit Jerusalema which became the most Shazamed song in the world this month. Some industry insiders worry that Savage may have lost her edge since she signed with Universal Music in 2019. But it might also be too soon to tell - the appeal of Celia might reveal itself in a slow burn. Whatever the case, we’re rooting for Tiwa.


SPORTS BUSINESS

Women are making waves in the sports industry this week. Thirty-year-old Tanzanian-Colombian Barbara Gonzalez became the first female CEO of a Tanzanian football club when she was appointed at the head of national champions Simba last week, two years after taking her place on the board. The brilliant, US-educated young woman was poached in 2016 by Tanzanian billionaire Mohamed Dewji, to work as both the head of his foundation and chief of staff. Dewji bought a 49% stake in Simba in 2017. Gonzalez will now be in charge of increasing revenue and building a global brand around the club, which boasts 20 million supporters. One of her first goals will be to develop an academy to foster young local talents.

In Sierra Leone, the government has implemented equal pay for the country’s female footballers, covering appearance fees and winning bonuses. The new measures have even been backdated for the women's team who have been paid $2,000 each for participating in this year's maiden West African Football union (Wafu) Zone A tournament on home soil. The government hopes that the move will serve as an incentive to develop women's football and lead to a growth in the number of players.

Meanwhile, the scramble for football broadcast rights continues across the continent. In Nigeria, Silverbird Television has signed on with Integral, the current free-to-air rights holder for the English Premier League, to broadcast one live match a week over the course of the 2020-2021 season. If similar deals with other FTA broadcasters follow, this could become a tough challenge for Multichoice. Still in Nigeria, TStv, a local direct-to-home Pay-TV company, has announced the acquisition of the rights to broadcast live matches from the English Football League (the league below the Premier League). And in South Africa, while the regulator ICASA is reviewing rules around broadcast exclusivity for “public interest sports” which again, would directly go against Multichoice, the SABC has signed on with the Bundesliga to broadcast one live game per week for the 2020-2022 season.


BROADCAST

The big news in broadcast this week is the acquisition by global music TV group Trace of a majority stake in Okuhle Media, a leading producer of audiovisual content based in Cape Town. Okuhle Media, which was founded in 2003 and employs 78 staff, constitutes a 'high-potential asset' for Trace, which it will use to enhance its in-house production expertise, especially when it comes to building the courses of Trace Academia, an online edutainment platform set to be launched in November. Okuhle Media will also provide content to Trace TV channels and to TracePlay, the streaming platform of Trace Group.

I’ve talked a few times in HUSTLE & FLOW about the enormous success that is Big Brother Naija for its producer and broadcaster Multichoice. Well, that’s how enormous it is: Multichoice executives have now revealed that the production and promotion of Season 5 of the reality show, which is currently breaking all viewership records on the air, on VOD service Showmax and on social media, has cost upwards of $10 million. Which means that, if Multichoice has done its maths right, it is bringing in even more in revenue and/or subscriber acquisition, retention and engagement.


FILM

The Kenya Film Commission (KFC) is kicking off reforms that it says will bring insurance, medical cover, union protection, and funding to filmmakers. It is encouraging Kenyan creatives to officially sign up on the KFC website so they can be recognized and counted, as many of them are not registered with the Kenyan Revenue Authority (for good reason: dodging taxes is a basic condition for survival in the creative space in Kenya and beyond). The KFC also said it would set standard prices for content and prevent buyers from purchasing all exclusive rights to the content (as it is still often the case), leaving room for producers to manage and exploit their content over the long term across several platforms and territories. This won’t please buyers but it may well be a gamec hanger for the Kenyan film industry. Of course, the KFC approach may also backfire if the policy is not thoughtfully designed - see the wahala around Nigeria’s new broadcasting code. 

Talking about Nigerian wahala, Producer Pamela Adie and director Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim are risking up to 14 years in prison if they ignore the warnings of the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) and go ahead with the release of their movie Ife ("love" in Yoruba) about a lesbian relationship, which the NFVCB says violates the country’s stuck laws on homosexuality. This is not the first time an LGBTQ-themed movie has fallen foul of regulators on the continent. Stories of Our Lives (2014) and Rafiki (2018) were banned in Kenya, and Inxeba/The Wound (2018) in some theaters in South Africa. Certainly Adie and Ikpe-Etim knew what they were up against. Nevertheless the fearless filmmakers plan to release Ife in Nigeria through private screenings and hold international premieres online.

Meanwhile, if you want to keep abreast of the African talents and projects that are most likely to break out internationally in the next few years, head over to the awards section of the Durban Film Festival and the Durban Film Market, both of which took place recently online and just wrapped.


CINEMA EXHIBITION

Finally some good news for Nigeria’s film industry, which had ground to a complete stop due to the pandemic. Just as cinemas are finally reopening in Nigeria (albeit at just 33% of their capacity), leading production and distribution company FilmOne Entertainment has announced that it had signed with Disney to become the studio’s exclusive distributor in English-speaking West Africa. The agreement, which commenced this month, covers titles from all Disney studio divisions including Pixar, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, and Blue Sky pictures. FilmOne Entertainment is a division of FilmHouse Group, which is also the largest cinema exhibitor in Nigeria and West Africa. In 2019, FilmOne Entertainment signed a deal with Chinese media giant Huahua to co-produce the first major China-Nigeria film, and raised Nigeria’s first million-dollar film fund, also from Huahua and South Africa’s Empire Entertainment.


VOD

More Nigerian good news with the announcement today that Netflix is coming on board a new series project in the country. The 6-part untitled young adult drama series is created and produced by Inkblot Productions and will be directed by prominent filmmakers Chinaza Onuzo, Tope Oshin and Niyi Akinmolayan. The streamer will also be releasing 3 new Nigerian films branded as Netflix originals:  Kenneth Gyang’s Òlòtūré (produced by Mo Abudu), Kunle Afolayan’s Citation and Kemi Adetiba’s King of Boys II.

At the same time, Netflix has also been testing a $2.50 mobile-only pricing plan in South Africa, which seems priced to undercut Showmax’s mobile-only $3.00 plan. Until the introduction of this new option, Netflix was only accessible in South Africa for a $6.00 monthly subscription fee. Although the mobile-only plan limits the video stream to 480p and one viewing stream on a mobile device or tablet, this type of value proposition is likely to be a big hit across Africa.

And I’ll wrap up this week with the nomination of Nigerian-born exec and former MAC Cosmetics Chief Marketing Officer Ukonwa Ojo at the same position at Amazon’s Prime Video and Amazon Studios. Although she will not be in a position to directly influence content decisions, it’s always good news when a potential ally for African creation reaches the top of the global food chain.