Dear colleagues and friends,
Last Friday the world celebrated Juneteenth, an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United-States. Previously, Juneteenth had been relegated to American-American communities where it was celebrated almost confidentially, while the rest of the country and the world remained blissfully ignorant about it. But thanks to the global Black Lives Matter movement, its meaning now resonates widely, with companies like Twitter and Spotify offering employees a paid day off and efforts currently underway at the US Senate to make Juneteenth a national holiday.
In Africa, the flag of pan-Africanism has been captured by Ghana, which held a memorial for George Floyd and invited African-Americans to “Come home”. Ghana has long courted the descendants of enslaved Africans to “return home”. In 2019, its “Year of the Return” celebrations attracted a number of Black American personalities and even culminated in a naturalization ceremony where over 100 African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans became Ghanaian citizens. This strategy by Ghana to leverage shared culture and history to attract talents (and money) is nothing short of visionary, and makes Ghana a prime investment destination - I plan to unpack why and how in a future edition of HUSTLE & FLOW.
Meanwhile the new global awareness over systemic racism has also reached South Africa, a country that has so far not distinguished itself favorably on that topic, to say the least. Streaming service Showmax has pulled several films from popular white South African comedian Leon Schuster for review. Schuster’s films have raked in millions at the box office, making him probably the most successful filmmaker in South Africa. Schuster’s oeuvre includes a film in which he uses blackface, and another where he plays a white sangoma.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, we have a bit of an Ethiopian theme going on, which is fitting as Ethiopia is one of only two African countries (with Liberia) never to have been colonized. But I’ll also talk about Orange eyeing expansion into Nigeria, sports goods retailer Decathlon’s aggressive Africa strategy, and South African animation studio Triggerfish opening up in Ireland.
Please continue to share HUSTLE & FLOW with your friends and colleagues and to send in comments and contributions at marie@restless.global. Subscribe here to receive this newsletter directly into your inbox every Monday, and head over there to catch up on previous editions.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Amazon has added 3,000 new virtual customer service jobs in Johannesburg and Cape Town, bringing its total permanent workforce in South Africa to 7,000 people. The new roles range from customer service associates to technical staff and the employees will be working virtually from home to provide round-the-clock support for Amazon customers in North America and Europe.
This is just the latest in a series of major moves from the world’s tech giants as they continue to make strategic advances on the continent. As Kofi Yeboah writes on Global Voices this week, Facebook and Google (and to a smaller extent Amazon) are on a race to build Africa’s internet infrastructure and capture the world’s last virgin market. Although these companies have achieved faster, greater results than governments, their dominance in the provision of what has become a public good should be of concern as “Africa is vulnerable to mass mis- and disinformation, market monopolization, exploitation and misuse of personal data”. Besides issues around privacy and data use, there is the question of course of the takeover by the tech giants of huge chunks of countries’ digital economies with the concerned nations not reaping any benefits. In Europe, France has led the charge for a GAFAM tax that would be imposed on revenue accrued inside the country, even if the tech companies are headquartered elsewhere. If handled correctly and in a way that doesn’t dissuade investment, such a tax could be a new and welcome source of revenue for African governments.
MOBILE
According to reports by Reuters, French telco Orange is reportedly exploring ways to enter two of Africa’s biggest markets, Nigeria and South Africa, in the next few months. Orange is France’s largest mobile operator, and its portfolio across 18 countries in the Middle East and Africa is its fastest-growing market. Orange acquired four of Airtel’s units in Africa in 2016 and reportedly considered snapping up Etisalat Nigeria (now 9mobile) in 2017. This comes at a time when MTN Group is pressing on with its plans to dispose of 15% of its 79% stake in MTN Nigeria to local investors. No one knows if MTN Group would be ready to unload more, but it sounds like there is an opportunity there for Orange to slide in. In any case, the news of a potential arrival of Orange on the Nigerian market has sent waves of excitement among industry observers as the French telco certainly would have the weight to cause some serious (positive) disruption.
Meanwhile across the continent in Ethiopia, MTN and Vodacom are reportedly in the process of forming a partnership to bid for one of the country’s new telco licenses. To be continued.
E-COMMERCE
You read it in HUSTLE & FLOW first: Whatsapp is indeed rolling out its payment solution, starting with Brazil. And as I mentioned last week, Whatsapp Business catalog with Facebook Pay is stealthily being tested in Uganda, so we can expect things to move fast from now on. Enabling payments on Whatsapp, but also Facebook and Instagram, will be a game changer for small businesses, artists and creatives across Africa who are already heavy users of these platforms. It also hints at the future development of a “super app” ecosystem on the continent. S&P Global Market Intelligence has an in-depth article about the various models and strategies for super app development which is a must-read if you are interested in this topic.
FASHION
Ethiopia’s burgeoning garment industry has been hard hit by the slowdown in production caused by the COVID crisis, a recent report by the International Labor Organization shows. Managers are concerned about employee retention as mass layoffs loom. However, as many western economies lift their lockdowns and stores reopen, with only 60 COVID-related deaths from a total of 3,630 cases, Ethiopia is well positioned to hit the ground running to fulfill new orders. The Industrial Federation of Textile, Leather, Garment Workers Trade Union has launched a campaign to raise awareness of best health and safety practices in Ethiopian garment factories to limit the risk of a spike as business picks back up.
VISUAL ARTS
London-based gallery TAFETA, which is specialized in modern and contemporary African art, has launched the “SixforSix” initiative which offers the opportunity for collectors to live with up to three pieces from their “SixforSix” collection for six weeks before deciding whether they want to make a purchase. The collection features pieces by Arinze Stanley, Babajide Olatunji, George Osodi and more, priced between $970 and $9700.
The Dutch government returned a stolen ceremonial 18th-century crown to the Ethiopian government last Thursday. The crown went missing from a church in Ethiopia 21 years ago, and landed in “a suitcase left behind by a guest” in the apartment of Sirak Asfaw, a former Ethiopian refugee who is now a Dutch national. Asfaw waited 21 years to approach the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to let them know he was in possession of the object. Plot hole you say? We will not learn more about that mysterious guest from that CNN article unfortunately. The issue of the restitution of Africa’s artifacts seems to be gathering momentum though. Quartz continues to proactively cover the topic, publishing a new article this week, while Princeton art history professor Chika Okeke-Agulu called for the cancellation of a forthcoming auction in Paris of two sacred Igbo sculptures taken out of Nigeria during the Biafra war.
LITERATURE
This week OkayAfrica explores what happens when Nigeria’s vibrant literary scene moves online, as prominent events like Lola Shoneyin’s Ake Festival and Efe Paul Azino’s Lagos International Poetry Festival (LIPFEST) re-imagine themselves as virtual gatherings - and it’s not all bad as the loss of human physical connection is balanced by wider reach. According to the same article, the lockdown has also had a positive effect on local book sales, with bookstores reporting a surge in orders.
Meanwhile for the writers out there, applications for the 2020 Morland African Writing Scholarships will open on July 1st. Besides running this yearly scholarship, the Miles Morland Foundation also supports African writing and African literature through grants to literary festivals in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Somaliland, cultural initiatives in east, west, central and southern Africa, London’s Film Africa festival, the Caine Prize for African Writing, several African educational initiatives and the new Rhodes scholarships for Africans.
MUSIC
Universal Music Group (UMG) opened an office in Casablanca, Morocco, last week, as it seeks to expand its footprint in the MENA region to discover and promote new local talents. In sub-Saharan Africa, UMG already has offices in Abidjan, Lagos and Johannesburg. Two years ago it acquired Kenyan label AI Records, and it announced the launch of Def Jam Africa last month.
I talked last week about Tanzanian Bongo Flava superstar Diamond Platnumz and his mastery of YouTube, which he joined earlier than most other African artists in 2011. Well, a few days ago Platnumz became the first sub-Saharan African singer to reach one billion views on the platform, where he racks up 3.7 million subscribers. And he’s doing even better on Instagram where he has a staggering 9.7 million followers. Platinumz’s new song Quarantine also became viral on Tik Tok. The Tanzanian artist still ranks behind African performers from the diaspora such as Malian-born and Paris-based singer Aya Nakamura who has more than 1.7 billion YouTube views, or Senegalese-American rapper Akon who smashes them both with 3.5 billion views. Akon was also in the news this week but for a completely different reason: the global star and philanthropist announced that it had awarded a $6 billion contract to KE International to build and execute Akon City, his futuristic-cryptocurrency themed metropolis project in Senegal.
If charismatic African artists are the ones attracting the limelight, few know the name of the instrumental producers or “beatmakers” working closely with them to create their viral hits. African Shapers has a great run-down this week (in French) of some of the most talented beatmakers on the continent, from Platnumz’ collaborator Ayo Liser to Ghana’s Killbeatz or Nigeria’s Kel-P, who produced 10 of the 19 songs of Burna Boy’s Grammy nominated album African Giant.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Recession, what recession? French sporting goods retailer Decathlon is staying on track with its aggressive African expansion strategy and opened its second store in Abidjan last week. With over 1,600 stores in 57 countries, Decathlon is the largest sporting goods retailer in the world. In Africa, besides Ivory Coast the company also has stores in Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal, and its products are available online through a partnership with Jumia. Contrary to France where Decathlon also distributes leading brands such as Nike or Adidas, in Africa it chose to focus only on its own products.
Decathlon’s steady inroads on the continent are another strong sign that France is particularly well positioned to dominate vast areas of the sports market across Africa. I’ve talked previously about Vivendi Sports’ plans to create, develop and monetize (largely through broadcast rights) new sports leagues - including Afro-European MMA league ARES - across the continent. Earlier this month, ARES announced the signing of former WBO and WBA boxing champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, who joins other high-profile fighters such as Senegalese wrestler Reug Reug, UFC veterans Eric Shelton and Danilo Bellaurdo, former Bellator champion Will Brooks, UFC standouts Nordine Taleb and Juan Adams, and ex-UFC title challenger Wilson Reis. Now, for a bit of inside baseball, or rather inside MMA, website The Body Lock zoomed into screen captures from N’Dam signing video to expose confidential details about his contract. We learn that N’Dam’s base pay is to be $20,000 per fight with a $20,000 bonus in case of a knockout or submission, among other juicy details.
BROADCAST
To continue with our Ethiopia theme this week, Balancing Act’s Russell Southwood looks at the country’s freshly liberalized broadcast market to find out what’s going on. As Russell reports, Ethiopia now counts nearly 20 local channels. Although almost all of them saw their audience grow thanks to the thirst for news about COVID-19, they were also hit hard by the drop in advertising revenue. To add to this contextual challenge, in April the Ethiopian government banned the advertising of alcoholic beverages for health reasons. Local breweries had been an important source of advertising for broadcasters. The tense economic environment has already led to the closure of JTV, one of the country’s new stations, with rumors that at least two others will follow.
Despite the industry uproar which followed the publication of Nigeria’s new broadcast code last week, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) confirmed its intention to break the decades-old monopolistic sports broadcast rights structure in Nigeria, re-affirming in a press conference that its licensees would be banned from acquiring exclusive sports broadcast rights. The first victim of this new regulation would of course be Multichoice, which owns most premium sports broadcast rights in English-speaking Africa. Coincidentally, Multichoice issued a report last week showing that its products and services were 55% cheaper in Nigeria than in most of its other markets on the continent including Ghana, Kenya or South Africa. Despite the country’s size and potential, Multichoice’s Nigeria operations only bring 10.89% to the Group's revenue and $300 million in profit, compared to the $600 million generated in South Africa. Multichoice Nigeria blames challenging market conditions for its underwhelming results.
In South Africa, the SABC is reportedly planning mass layoffs to reduce its staff bill by up to $40 million, in-line with its new operating model which I mentioned last week. Pre-COVID, the embattled national broadcaster had received a $185 million financial bailout from the South African government, but will be prioritizing those funds to pay off creditors, invest in content and maintain its critical broadcast equipment and infrastructure.
FILM
The Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) and Market (DFM), arguably Africa’s leading film rendez-vous which normally takes place every year in July in the South African coastal city, will be taking place virtually in September. Another opportunity to discover African films online is the relaunch of Cinewax’s Online African Film Festival (OAFF) with a Kickstarter launch party on June 24 and the free screening of Kenya’s Likarion Wainana Supa Modo. I mentioned the controversy around the production of this film in last week’s HUSTLE & FLOW - now is your opportunity to watch it.
Kenyan filmmakers have built a true expertise in navigating the complex (and political) world of international film festivals and film funds. The latest one to snag funding is the very talented animator Ng'endo Mukii, who received a script and development grant from the Hubert Bals Fund for her feature debut The Goat Sunday. Also in this year’s HBF Spring Selection are Sudanese director Ali Cherri, Mohamed Rashad from Egypt and Tariq Teguia from Algeria.
VOD
Not a big surprise considering the runaway success of its first season, but South African teen mystery drama Blood & Water was renewed for a second season at Netflix. The streamer’s strategy for its African originals is an interesting one. Indeed, Netflix could have chosen to produce and release both Queen Sono and Blood & Water as 12-episode series, which is the traditional TV format across Africa (except for soaps and telenovelas which have dozens of episodes per season). But by basically cutting the traditional series length in half to release short 6-part seasons, Netflix avoids putting too much pressure on producers for whom these projects are the firsts with truly global ambitions, while giving them more resources to focus on quality. At the same time, this approach also allows Netflix to limit their financial exposure on a new market, and the tactic of ending these short seasons on cliffhangers ensures that demand for a second season will be as strong as possible.
CONTENT PRODUCTION
Linear broadcasters on the other end need long-running series to fill their many hours of programming. Multichoice’s South African channel M-Net has announced the upcoming release of its new telenovela called Legacy, scheduled for September 2020. The show is described as a cross between HBO's Succession and The Bold and The Beautiful with some Brazilian telenovela undertones. Over the years, M-Net and its various African channels have built a strong expertise in that specific genre, producing successful long-running soaps such as Jacob’s Cross, Tinsel, or Hotel Majestic.
ANIMATION
Award-winning South African animation studio Triggerfish has announced that it will establish its first international production arm in Galway, Ireland. I have been a fan and a friend of Triggerfish since the launch of The XYZ Show in 2009 (there were few of us trying to do African animation at the time), and I was lucky to visit their beautiful Cape Town studio several years ago. The current success of Triggerfish, which launched all the way back in 1996 and is now widely recognized as the best and largest animation studio in Africa, is a study in dogged perseverance. More than ten years ago CEO Stuart Forrest and his team embarked on the seemingly impossible task of producing ambitious animated feature films in South Africa for a fraction of the cost that similar projects would have taken to get made in Europe or the US. The studio’s feature films Adventures in Zambezia (2012) and Khumba (2013), voiced by Hollywood stars like Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne or Liam Neeson, were released in cinemas worldwide and both reached the top 5 highest grossing films of all time in South Africa. Triggerfish then expanded to TV, working with UK company Magic Light Pictures to produce Annecy Festival Cristal award winner Stick Man, Oscar-nominated Roald Dahl adaptation Revolting Rhymes, International Emmy-winning Zog, British Animation Awards winner The Snail and the Whale, and Rose d’Or-winning The Highway Rat. Triggerfish management has always been concerned about growing animation capacity in Africa, and in 2015 the studio launched the Triggerfish Story Lab with the support of Disney to develop writers and directors from across the continent. One of the projects that emerged from the program is Mama K’s Team 4, which Triggerfish is currently producing for Netflix as the platform’s first original African animated TV series. Also on Triggerfish’s busy slate is their third feature film, the action-comedy Seal Team. In this context, the studio “needed more capacity to keep up with (their) ambitions,” and clearly they were not able, despite their best efforts, to expand fast enough in Africa. The opening of Triggerfish's Galway location received the support of the Irish government and is expected to create 60 new jobs over the next three years.
