Dear colleagues and friends,
First off, Ramadan Kareem to those of you celebrating.
Me, I love Kenyan humor. One of the best places to hang out for comedy is Kenyan Twitter during a power cut, and last week, KOT (Kenyans on Twitter) came through once again. After the IMF approved a new $2.34 billion loan for Kenya, outraged citizens lashed out on the platform through the hashtag #StopGivingKenyaLoans, pleading with the IMF to quit enabling the gross corruption and unaccountability of the Kenyan government. At the time of writing, a petition asking the IMF to cancel the loan had gathered 234,000 signatures.
On the positive front, there’s also been some good news coming out of East Africa. Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan, to whom we had given the benefit of the doubt despite her non-mask-wearing ways, has ordered the country’s information ministry to lift its ban on media houses which were penalized during her predecessor’s regime. This may mark the beginning of a detente with the country’s creative class, after years spent at the mercy of Magufuli’s unpredictable whims.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about the rise and rise of African fintech and MTN Money’s self-declared $5 billion valuation, the arrival of Impact X Studios in the African content space, and the sacrilege of Twitter setting up shop in Ghana and not in Nigeria. But you’ll also learn about why Nairobi leads in fashion, arts, and general coolness, new Egyptian archaeological discoveries, an 8-months pregnant gold winner, a white-passing mixed race detective, and what I want for Christmas.
As always, you can consult previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW and subscribe to this newsletter by heading over to www.restless.global/hustleflow. Abeg, please remember to add a quick note to your LinkedIn invites so that I know you are a reader. This would dramatically increase your chances of not being ignored.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Mauritius-based telecom giant EMTEL has launched METISS (Meltingpot Indianoceanic Submarine System), a new 3,200km fibre optic cable connecting South Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar and Reunion Island to a tier 3 certified data center in Port Louis. The new infrastructure is already connected to several major cloud services such as Azure and AWS and to internet exchange points with solid backhauls in Mauritius and South Africa, and is expected to significantly reduce latency in the region.
As internet access and usage continue to grow exponentially across the continent, governments are increasingly experimenting with ways to regulate - and tax - the sector. Since 2018, Ugandan internet subscribers have been required to pay a $0.055 daily tax to use social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. The measure, however, backfired deplorably, leading to a decline in the number of internet users, failed revenue targets as many users started using VPNs, and even social unrest. Now the Ugandan government is considering a new strategy: a 12% tax on internet data usage beginning from July 1. A controversial proposal, as many fear it may further frustrate the development of the country’s internet sector, as well as limit freedom of expression and access to information.
TECH & CREATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE
2020 was the year in which the true potential of Africa’s tech and creative industries was revealed. Nigeria in particular emerged as a powerhouse in the making, with monster raises, valuations and exits in its fintech sector, the announcement of groundbreaking film and TV content partnerships, and the continued strengthening of Afrobeats’ hold on the global charts. Now the Nigerian government, in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB), has announced the upcoming launch of a $500 million fund aimed at further supporting and enabling the growth of the country’s Creative and Technology sectors. The facility will be managed under the auspices of the Nigerian Innovation Programme (full disclosure: I am the Creative Industries expert on this project led by PwC Nigeria), designed to bridge the existing gaps by focusing on four pillars - human capital, financing, infrastructure and enabling environment.
MOBILE
Following Airtel Money’s recent $2.56 billion valuation, MTN has valued the current worth of its own mobile money business at $5.15 billion. The company said it would consider a spin off and public listing of its mobile money arm if this emerged as the best way to unlock further value. Looking at market trends, it is safe to expect that in a few years’ time several of the continent’s telco-owned mobile money businesses (including Airtel Mobile Commerce and Safaricom’s M-Pesa) will have joined the ranks of Africa’s most valuable publicly listed companies. According to GSMA, transactions from mobile money services in sub-saharan Africa currently amount to about $490 billion annually, with major markets such as Nigeria and Ethiopia yet to roll-out.
E-COMMERCE
It’s been some time since we haven’t talked about super apps in HUSTLE & FLOW. A new development to look forward to this year will be the South Africa launch of VodaPay, Vodacom’s new super app in partnership with Alibaba’s Alipay. Vodacom already has experience with mobile money products and operates Kenyan platform M-Pesa in several African countries. Now, besides allowing users to pay utility bills, transfer money or purchase goods, the new VodaPay platform will also let them hail rides, stream music, and access other lifestyle services. Super apps, which are already dominant in Asia, have been steadily building momentum in Africa, where they are typically anchored around a core service such as a mobile money solution or a ride-hailing fleet, which allows them to build an initial customer-base. Leading panafrican super app players include the Chinese-backed OPay and e-commerce giant Jumia, while smaller companies such as Togo’s Gozem, Algeria’s temtem, and Uganda’s SafeBoda are at the moment still focused on their home markets.
LITERATURE
Five African writers have been shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Three Nigerian authors - Ola W. Halim for An Analysis of a Fragile Affair, Vincent Anioke for Ogbuefi and Franklyn Usouwa for A for Abortion - have been selected alongside Namibia’s Remy Ngamije for Granddaughter of The Octopus and Moso Sematlane's Tetra Hydro Cannabinol from Lesotho.
ARCHITECTURE
The Holidays are still a long way off, but I wouldn’t mind receiving this as a Christmas present. Dom Publishers has released an ambitious, 7-volume Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide, covering the history of significant buildings in 49 countries in Africa. Editors Phillip Meuser and Adil Dalbai collaborated with a network of 350 local experts to ensure that the guide showcased the most important works in each country as well as interesting examples of everyday architecture. According to Meuser, “Africa is not only very rich in different types of architecture. The continent is a great resource for a theoretical debate on the future of the city."
VISUAL ARTS
Art Review takes us on a tour of Nairobi’s burgeoning contemporary art scene, which has in recent years established itself as a dynamic hub for East African art, thanks in part to the curatorial and promotional efforts of a growing list of contemporary art spaces. These spaces, which include Circle Art Gallery, the GoDown Arts Center, the Kuona Trust, the One-Off Contemporary Art Gallery and online platform GravitArts, have been instrumental in building collectors’ interest for home-grown talents as well as for artists from neighboring Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. The innovative Circle Art Gallery in particular has led the way since 2013, hosting the annual East Africa Art auction which attracts art buyers from across the region, and participating in art fairs in Johannesburg, London, Dubai and Paris.
HERITAGE
Less than one week after the ceremonious transfer of 22 Egyptian mummies to the new Cairo museum, archaeologists have discovered a 3,000 year-old lost city buried under the sand in Luxor. The city, named “The Rise of Aten”, was in existence around 1,390 BC during the reign of Amenhotep III, and was later inhabited by succeeding Kings including Tutankhamen. The discovery is regarded as the second most-important archaeological find since the tomb of Tutankhamen himself.
Meanwhile, the pace of the return of Nigeria’s stolen Benin Bronzes is heating up, with another British institution - the Horniman Museum in London - now considering repatriating some of the artifacts in its custody.
FASHION
Kenyan multi-talented creatives Sunny Dolat and Noel Kayoka have co-directed LOOKU, a short film celebrating Nairobi’s affair with fashion and style. The 5-minute film is an audiovisual accompaniment to Wauzine—a limited three-issue digital publication by the British Council East Africa Arts Programme through Creative DNA.
MUSIC
This will be nothing new for regular readers of HUSTLE & FLOW, but this Quartz article does a good job at explaining why “the world’s biggest music companies are scrambling to sign African artists”. If you have missed that train somehow, now is the time to catch up.
SPORTS BUSINESS
A couple FIFA news this week: Following discussions initiated earlier this year between DRC’s president Felix Tshishekedi and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, FIFA, the Football Association of the DRC (FECOFA) and the government of DRC have signed an MoU for the creation of a school championship, that will launch first DRC before being rolled out across the continent. As part of the initiative, DRC is pledging to incorporate football training in its national education curriculum. Meanwhile, South African pay TV channel SuperSport has secured the sub-Saharan broadcasting rights for all 64 matches of the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.
And yes, there is a video of it: 8-months pregnant Nigerian athlete Aminat Idrees has won a gold medal in the Mixed Poomsae category in Taekwondo at Nigeria’s recently concluded National Sports Festival. Thankfully, Poomsae is not a fight but a tactical combination of movements against imaginary attacks, which means that Idrees was never at risk of receiving a blow.
BROADCAST
Still in Nigeria, following the approval of $23 million in public funding and the establishment of a dedicated task force, the government has announced the recommencement of the Digital Switch Over (DSO) process from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting. After a long delay due to lack of funding and overall chaos, 31 out of the country’s 36 states are, embarrassingly, yet to commence the transition. Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed estimates that the sale of new spectrum licenses could net the government over $1 billion and has the potential to create one million jobs in a span of 3 years.
In Zimbabwe, the communications authority has announced plans to issue more television and radio licences to independent stations. This transformation comes after 60 years of broadcasting monopoly, as Zimbabwe had only one television station since 1956. The liberalization of the country’s broadcast sector started last November, when an initial 6 new players were awarded commercial television licenses.
Russell Southwood from Balancing Act caught up with Monde Twala, Senior VP and GM of ViacomCBS Networks Africa, to find out what the American company has been up to on the continent while others were making moves. ViacomCBS Networks Africa claims to reach more than 100 million viewers across 48 territories in Africa through its 10 separate TV channels, 5 consumer websites, and various mobile and social media sites. Twala mentioned the launch of The Culture Squad, a platform that seeks to give African creatives and trendsetters a bigger stage across the network’s youth brands MTV, MTV Base and BET Africa. In addition, MTVBase has commissioned several music-focused reality shows, while BET Africa has invested in Isono, its first original drama series which has also just launched on BET France, and Nickelodeon has started producing local animation. Perhaps more interestingly, Twala hinted that ViacomCBS’ streaming services Paramount+ and Pluto TV were on the pipeline for an Africa roll out, and that they would be introduced first through partnerships with mobile networks, and affiliate Pay TV or Free-To-Air channels.
Finally, SABC and A+ Ivoire are teasing some new and noteworthy releases of their own this month, with telenovela The Estate for the former (featuring a sleek opening sequence), and La Derniere Voix for the later, a series by Canal+’s favorite director Alex Ogou in partnership with Universal, built around a panafrican singing competition.
VOD
MTN Uganda has announced the launch of Kibanda Xpress, a new local VOD channel aimed at boosting Uganda's film industry. Kibanda Xpress will stream local and international audio and video content on the YoTV mobile application, starting with a catalogue of 150 Ugandan movies.
Working Wives, a 13-episode dramedy series about the lives and loves of a group of Harare women from a millennial's perspective, is the first Zimbabwean series to be acquired by panafrican service Showmax. Adapted from a blog created by Sharon Bwanya and loosely reminiscent of the Real Housewives franchise, Working Wives was first released as a web series before being picked up by Showmax. All the way back in 2014, An African City broke ground by becoming the first African web series to be plucked from YouTube and given the TV treatment when Canal+ invested in a second season of the show. As the African content ecosystem continues to develop and mature, we can expect to see more creators transitioning from social media to traditional broadcast or global platforms.
FILM
South Africa’s surprise Netflix hit My Octopus Teacher has won the Best Documentary Award at the 74th BAFTA. Set in a kelp forest off the Cape of Storms, the documentary shows a free-divers experience with an octopus who helps him discover that human beings are inseparable from nature. My Octopus Teacher is also shortlisted for this year’s Oscars in the Best Documentary category.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
The arrival of new investors in the African content space is always worth celebrating. This particular debut has been in the works since 2019, but then, you know, Covid. Impact X Capital partners Erica Motley and Eric Collins have now announced the launch of Impact X Studios, a new vehicle to fund, develop and package projects that focus on inclusion and diversity globally and in Africa. You may remember that a couple months ago Impact X invested in comics and animation company YouNeek Studios. The fund has now revealed its content slate, which includes Live Connection, a documentary series about European afrobeats artists and culture, and Blind Ambition, a series by writer-director Kagiso Lediga from South African prodco Diprente.
In other content development news, South Africa’s Quizzical Pictures and Australia’s Goalpost Pictures have teamed up to co-produce Detective Cooper for M-Net. The crime series, which is the first TV collaboration between the two countries, is an adaptation from the book A beautiful place to die written by Australian-South African author Malla Nunn. It is centered around a mixed race detective who passes as white in apartheid South Africa.
Stay Gold Features and Topic Studios have partnered to finance and produce Nanny, a horror film written and directed by Sierra Leonean-American filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu, in her feature directorial debut. Jusu’s script boasts some proper cred: it was selected by the 2019 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab & Summit, Sundance’s 2020 Writer’s Lab, and the 2020 Director’s Lab, and landed on the 2020 Black List.
ANIMATION
The Kwetu International Animation Film Festival (KIAFF) held its inaugural, virtual edition in early April in partnership with NuellaTV, presenting 50 animation works from around the world with a focus on films “Made in Africa”. I am proud to report that From Here to Timbuktu, a short film I produced through my Kenyan studio Buni Media back in 2013 (but that the team wisely decided to re-edit and re-release last year) won the award for Best East African Film. The jury beautifully stated that “This truly legendary quest for knowledge is an artful story steeped in African history, tradition and even politics whose sounds and visions take us to places where only the brave go and come back with a sense of confidence and hunger for more African history”. From Here to Timbuktu was initially meant to be the pilot episode of a full animated series about ancient African history called Once Upon A Time in Africa, but unfortunately and very frustratingly, we were not able to finance it at the time.
SOCIAL MEDIA
After a well-publicized Africa tour which took him to Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa in 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that the company was setting up its first continental office in Accra. The choice of Ghana was made based on the country’s embrace for free speech, online freedom and open internet, as well as its status as host of the Secretariat of the African continental Free Trade Area. Nigerians on Twitter were none too pleased to find out that their country had been passed over for their much smaller neighbor, leading to a revival of the long-running, friendly-but-still-serious “jollof war” between the two countries. Many Nigerians were however quick to acknowledge Nigeria’s blatant non competitiveness when it comes to ease of doing business, as the country continues to grapple with unpredictable and overzealous regulations, lack of infrastructure, and perpetual forex challenges.
And finally, following the success of Master KG’s Jerusalema on the app, Tik Tok has announced a pan-African licensing agreement to pay royalties to African artists through the Composers Authors and Publishers Association (CAPASSO) and Southern Africa Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), covering repertoire belonging to 21 separate collective management organisations. The new deal ensures that songwriters, composers and publishers across Africa can benefit when their music is used on Tik Tok. It comes after Tik Tok’s expanded global agreement with Universal Music Group signed in February, and similar deals signed with Sony Music and Warner Music Group late last year.
HUSTLE & FLOW #36: Airtel Money’s monster $2.65B valuation; Egypt’s Pharaohs’ new resting place; Francis Ngannou, Cameroonian King of the UFC
Dear colleagues and friends,
Happy Easter to those of you celebrating.
Spring has sprung in the Western hemisphere. Covid vaccines are rolling out smoothly in the US and UK, and painstakingly slowly in Europe. In Africa, meanwhile, many people remain wary, so much so that health officials fear that valuable doses will expire before they can be administered because of the lack of demand. The grim history of medical experimentation on the continent has, of course, a lot to do with it.
In other news, actress Thandie Newton has just announced that she is reverting to the original Zimbabwean spelling of her first name, Thandiwe. In her announcement Newton explained that her name was misspelled in the credits to her first film, Flirting, back in 1991. She had been stuck with the mistake ever since. This missing “w” is not a detail, and the fact that, 20 years later, Newton finally feels able to reclaim her real name is a testament to the recent progress made in the global understanding and acceptance of African cultures.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about three major African Empires of the past, present and future: the mythical Pharaohs of Egypt, West African fighters’ coronation as absolute rulers of the UFC kingdom, and Airtel Money, the new double unicorn of the world’s most dynamic mobile money market. Read on as well for some juicy bits on an African superfood with as much protein as steak, the origin story of Afrobeats, Multichoice’s stealth global expansion, and the social media content revolution you’re not seeing coming.
As always, head over to www.restless.global/hustleflow to subscribe or catch up on previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW.
On Wednesday April 14 at 4pm GMT, I will be speaking at Digital MIPTV about “TV Drama’s Last Frontier: Producing in and with Africa”. If you plan on attending MIPTV and are curious about the African content market, this is your chance to ask all your questions. It would be a pleasure to see you there.
Happy reading,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
The data center race continues unabated. Pan-African data centre developer Raxio and asset manager Meridiam have announced a $48 million partnership to deploy a network of data centres across the African continent, in countries where both Raxio and Meridiam already have strong local presence. Raxio is currently developing or operating 3 facilities in Uganda, Ethiopia, and DRC.
DRC is also where the entity formerly known as Liquid Telecom - and recently rebranded as Liquid Intelligent Technologies - is planning to deploy a new 4,000km optical fibre network, after completing the construction of a 2,500km stretch in the western part of the country. Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a subsidiary of Zimbabwean tycoon Strive Masiyiwa’s Econet Wireless Group, recently added IT and cybersecurity to its core business of telecommunications.
MOBILE
Global payments giant Mastercard has invested $100 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce, the holding company for the Airtel Money brand which operates in 13 countries in Africa. The transaction, which comes on the heels of a $200 million investment in the company by TPG’s Rise Fund just two weeks ago, values Airtel Mobile Commerce at a whopping $2.65 billion -- a bright neon sign of the current optimism in Africa’s digital payment sector. Airtel Africa is now exploring listing Airtel Mobile Commerce within 4 years. You can bet that we will see other major African telcos spin off their mobile money platforms in the coming years as a way to accelerate growth in a hot hot hot market.
Meanwhile in Kenya, Safaricom has launched the country’s first commercial 5G services in partnership with Nokia and Huawei. The rollout began in the capital Nairobi and will expand to other areas considered to have high data consumption. According to GSMA Intelligence, commercial 5G services will be operational in at least 7 sub-Saharan African markets by 2025, reaching 28 million or 3% of total mobile connections. Vodacom was the first operator to launch 5G on the continent with a move in Lesotho in 2018, followed by South Africa in May 2020.
LITERATURE
Kenyan literary icon Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has become the first writer to be nominated for the International Booker prize as both author and translator of the same book for his latest novel The Perfect Nine, and also the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. The 83-year-old perennially-frustrated Nobel favourite is among 13 authors nominated for the award, a £50,000 prize split evenly between author and translator. The Perfect Nine is a novel-in-verse originally written in Gikuyu, which was described by the judges as “a magisterial and poetic tale about women’s place in a society of gods”.
Other African writers are gaining international recognition this Spring. Ghanaian-American writer Yaa Gyasi is the only African-born author named in the Women's Prize 2021 longlist for her sophomore novel Transcendent Kingdom. Gyasi released Transcendent Kingdom in 2020 following her award-winning 2016 debut Homegoing which sold for over $1 million. On the Francophone side, Cameroonian writer Djaïli Amadou Amal has won the Goncourt des lycéens (High Schoolers’ Goncourt) for her latest novel Les Impatientes. Amal had previously been among the 4 finalists for the 2020 Goncourt Prize, France’s most prestigious literature prize.
HERITAGE
This is, without contest, the video of the week: in a historic procession through the streets of Cairo dubbed The Pharaohs' Golden Parade, 22 Egyptian mummies - 18 kings and four queens - were relocated last weekend to their new resting place at the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. Each mummy was placed in a special nitrogen-filled box and carried on a decorated vehicle fitted with special shock-absorbers, surrounded by a motorcade. Egyptian authorities are hoping that the new museum, which opens fully this month, will help revitalize tourism after the disaster that was 2020. Unless… the “Curse of the Pharaohs”, a 100-year-old myth that alleges that a curse would be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, is what got us all there in the first place.
In a landmark move for a British institution, the University of Aberdeen has confirmed that it would repatriate one of the disputed Benin bronzes -- looted by the British forces in Nigeria in 1897 -- “within weeks”. Historically, much of the focus of the debate around the return of looted African art in the UK has been on the British Museum, which has the largest collection of bronzes in the world. But the British Museum and other national institutions are currently prevented from permanently returning items by the British Museum Act 1963 and the Heritage Act 1983. Museums that sit outside the national portfolios, however, can in theory return bronzes more easily, which means that Aberdeen’s initiative could potentially encourage other regional institutions to do the same.
GASTRONOMY
The global commercial potential of African superfoods is one in which I believe strongly. Although the field is almost totally green (pun intended), a few chefs, nutritionists and scientists from the diaspora have started to explore traditional ingredients such as fonio, plantain, manioc and sweet potato flour, which are gluten-free and much easier to digest. Bouye juice, or ‘monkey wine’, which is made from the fruit of the baobab tree, is a source of fiber and antioxidants, very rich in calcium, vitamin C and potassium. But even more impressive is moringa, nicknamed the ‘tree of life’, which contains as much protein as a beef steak, four times more vitamin A than a carrot, as much magnesium as dark chocolate, and 25 times more iron than spinach. The next Kombucha could very well come from Africa.
FASHION
Women-led Kenyan design house Pine Kazi, which converts pineapple leaf and recycled rubber into fashionable footwear, has won the $2,000 Fashionomics Africa competition cash prize. The brand, co-founded by Olivia Okinyi, Angela Musyoka and Mike Langa, will also have access to media opportunities and receive mentoring and networking opportunities from competition collaborators.
MUSIC
The origins story of Afrobeats is finally being told. Last weekend, the highly-anticipated documentary Afrobeats: The Backstory was released in theaters in Nigeria, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes to a streaming service near you. The 9-episode series was produced by Ayo Shonaiya and supported by Boomplay, in what is - as far as I can tell - the music streaming giant’s first move into video production. The documentary will no doubt explain the complex filiation between modern, popular Afrobeats and Afrobeat without an s, the innovative genre pioneered by Fela Kuti in the 1970s. Talking about Fela, his son Seun Kuti, a talented musician in his own right, has recently signed with the California-based record label Knitting Factory Entertainment, also responsible for the promotion of the older Kuti’s catalogue.
Finally, music distributor ONErpm has expanded its operations into Nigeria and named Osagie Osarenz as Country Manager. ONErpm operates in more than 20 territories globally, supporting over 600,000 artists, music labels and video creators worldwide and managing more than 8,000 YouTube channels that collectively generate over 9 billion views a month. Its roster in Africa already includes heavyweights such as Flavour, Laycon, Reminisce, and YCee.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Another African Empire in the spotlight this week is the one West African fighters have carved for themselves at the very top of global Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). A week ago, the Cameroonian Francis Ngannou became the new heavyweight UFC champion, joining Nigerian middleweight and welterweight titleholders Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman on the top of the league’s podium. Ngannou’s rags to riches life story, which took him from the sand mines of Cameroon, through Spanish jails and the streets of Paris, to becoming the most powerful heavyweight potentially ever seen in the UFC, is now hot property in Hollywood.
The Basketball Africa League’s historic inaugural season will tip off on May 16 at the Kigali Arena in Rwanda, with the finals taking place on May 30. The BAL, a partnership between the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) marks the NBA’s first collaboration to operate a league outside of North America. The competition will pit against each other champion teams from 12 national leagues (Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda).
BROADCAST
The head-splitting headache that is the Nigerian broadcast sector may be getting even more convoluted. The Minister of Information and Culture recently shared the federal government’s plan to impose a fine for local brand adverts that run on CNN and other international stations in Nigeria, as well as during foreign matches. You may remember that Nigerian broadcasters purchasing rights to foreign league matches are also now required to invest an amount equivalent to 30% of that fee into local football. The measures are aimed to, in a roundabout way, fight against what the government deems unfair competition from foreign companies such as Multichoice. In the same breath, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has announced that the cost for a 5-year "Free View National Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting Licence" would now be... $700,000. License holders will also be expected to pay 2.5% of their annual earnings to the NBC. Any connection between the struggles of local broadcast operators and the government’s appetite for overregulation and overtaxation is purely coincidental.
Meanwhile Malawi has joined the very small club of the 8 African countries that have now successfully migrated from analogue to digital broadcasting. The digital platform will allow more than 20 broadcasters to operate on one frequency. However, the question is how many TV channels will be able to survive in such a small market where the advertiser pool is limited.
VOD
Multichoice is accelerating the pace of its - still discreet - international expansion, faced with increased competition from Netflix and other global platforms. VOD service Showmax has announced that it would be making its Nigerian catalogue available for Nigerians living abroad, including top TV shows such as I AM LAYCON starring Big Brother Naija's winner Laycon Agbeleshe, several popular Africa Magic TV series, and the upcoming Nigerian Idol Season 6. After decades spent sitting jealousy on its catalog, Multichoice has also tapped UK-based distributor Fugitive as exclusive global distributor for its original scripted series. Fugitive is currently shopping 3 series (crime drama Lioness, psychological thriller Dam, and telenovela Legacy), with a further 9 to be made available in the 2021-22 financial year. Fugitive will also help MultiChoice secure future coproductions and pre-sales from the international market for titles on its originals slate.
South African Tourism has partnered with Netflix to explore projects that have the potential to drive international visitors to South Africa. The partnership aims to promote the must-visit sights through locally produced series. Not officially part of this new initiative but standing nonetheless as a great advertising for the artsy-hipster side of Johannesburg is Netflix’s upcoming sequel to the 2016 hit movie Happiness is a Four-Letter Word. The original movie, based on Nozizwe Cynthia Jele' novel, told the story of three friends trying to find happiness while maintaining images of success and acceptability in South Africa. The sequel will be called Happiness Ever After and be set 5 years after the first film.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Applications are now open for the6th edition of the Ouaga Film Lab. As Francophone Africa’s leading project development and co-production lab, the Ouaga Film Lab’s main goal is to strengthen the competitiveness of directors and producers and to facilitate their access to local and international funding, co-producers and mentors.
The Write Project has announced its list of finalistsfrom the first cycle of applications from around Africa to The Write Project Film Fund, which received over 900 submissions. The Write Project is backed by media finance company PSP Media Capital, which provides investment funds for independent productions, with a focus on projects with global streaming appeal. The Write Project has greenlit 17 short and feature films, documentary and TV projects from across Africa for financing, including 2 features with budgets of close to $2.5 million each.
Another funding opportunity is thenew Francophonie Fund TV5MONDEplus, launched by the International Francophonie Organization (OIF) and French channel TV5Monde with the support of Canada. The new fund is aimed at producers of films or series from 37 French-speaking countries, whose content will be broadcast on the new global TV5MONDEplus platform. The new fund will initially be endowed with about $350,000 for its first year and can be combined with the Image de la Francophonie Fund, the historic financing tool of the OIF.
Staying in Francophone Africa, the non-profit association Vegon co-founded by producer Angela Aquereburu has launched acrowdfunding campaign to finance a Togolese web series projectshot in the local mina language.
DIGITAL MEDIA
Former CNN anchor Isha Sesay has been tapped asnew CEO of digital media company OkayMedia. More specifically, Sesay will oversee Okayplayer, the progressive music site founded by The Roots frontman Amir “Questlove” Thompson in 1999, and OkayAfrica, a website dedicated to African culture, music and politics. She has also been named co-founder and CEO of OkayMedia’s new production arm, SPKN/WRD, which will bring “seldom-heard global voices and fresh perspectives to the forefront” across feature films, documentaries, TV, podcasting and publishing. You may recall that Abiola Oke, the previous CEO of OkayMedia, was forced to resign last yearafter employees accused him of toxic and abusive behavior.
ANIMATION
Last year was supposed to be a big year for African animation: the continent had been selected as spotlight territory for the 2020 edition of the prestigious Annecy International Animation Festival, and a full-on celebration was in the works. But then of course the pandemic happened and the highly-anticipated showcase was postponed indefinitely. This year, the festival will take place once again in digital form and the 2021 official selection includes several African projects, hand-picked out of 2,700 submissions coming from almost 100 different countries. Among those,Twende: the Pole Pole Pangolinwas initially pitched by Apes in Space’s Kwame Nyong’o (yes, from THAT Nyong’o family) in 2019, and was later developed with director Mike Scott as a South Africa-Kenya-US-UK co-production. Another Apes in Space project,The Wonderful Story of Aisha, Ali and Flipflopi the Multicoloured Dhow Boat, as well as theFrench-IvorianKenda: The Ideal Candidate, have also been selected in the Young Audience short films section.
SOCIAL MEDIA
TikTok is launching an incubator project for Black South African creatorsin partnership with the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF). The program, dubbed Rising Voices, will introduce 100 creators to the digital skills required to turn their content into a viable career over the course of 6 weeks. After the program, 20 selected creators will receive a grant and be commissioned to create a series of paid content. Applications are open until April 9.
Facebook is set to expand its new ticketed live streaming platform to South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco. The platform, which was initially launched in August 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and allows creators to charge for live events such as virtual tours, private concerts and live podcasts, is operational in 24 countries worldwide. Facebook is also testing additional ways to monetize content, such as introducing in-stream ads for Live and fan subscriptions. The power vested in social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok to boost the development of a self-sufficient creator class across the continent is immense.
HUSTLE & FLOW #35: Burna Boy’s Grammy win, African films at the Oscars, Instagram Lite launches, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
Covid-19 claimed another prominent African politician last week, when Tanzania’s president John Pombe Magufuli passed away at age 61, officially yet implausibly from a heart attack. Magufuli’s death promptly inspired eulogies based on his track record as “The Bulldozer”, standing up to corruption and the exploitation of Tanzania from foreign investors.
But Magufuli was also an ardent Covid-skeptic of the Bolsonaro-Trump variety, who put his country’s entire population at risk by refusing to implement pandemic health protocols. He was also not a fan of free speech, and once censored - and this is not a joke - my friend’s children cartoon TV show for featuring a rainbow, a sure symbol of the Global Gay Conspiracy.
All eyes are now on Tanzania’s first female president Samia Suluhu Hassan, to whom benefit of the doubt will be given -- even though she has also recently been seen addressing crowds without a mask or social distancing.
The other news of major global importance last week was Kanye West’s brief coronation by some mathematically-challenged media as “the richest Black man in the world” before being ruthlessly stripped of his title. Much more reliable is the McKinsey study which showed that Hollywood is losing some $10 billion in potential revenue annually because of the consistent underfunding and undervaluing of Black-led projects. Talking about valuation, Nigerian fintech startup Flutterwave recently became Africa’s new unicorn after closing its latest $170 million funding round.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about Afrobeats star Burna Boy proving with his Grammy win that he is not only an African but also a World Giant, which African filmmakers made the Oscars’ final list, and the long-awaited launch of Instagram Lite. Read on also for quick bites on mysterious African fractals, the new chips-eating Kenyan face of Valentino, Senegalese rappers pushing for change, Motsepe’s ambitions for African football, and a Cameroonian gaming studio’s innovative equity “crowdraising” model.
Finally, with everything that’s been happening, the pandemic, yada yada yada, I completely forgot to celebrate HUSTLE & FLOW’s one year anniversary last month. What initially started as a confidential newsletter has turned into an inclusive publication now followed by close to 1,000 subscribers and a few hundred more stealth readers on my website. In the past year, I have noticed a quantum leap in foreign partners’ interest in and understanding of the African creative ecosystem, and I would like to believe that HUSTLE & FLOW played a small role in this. So asanteni sana for your support, and for your attention. Tuko pamoja.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
New data center transaction alert - this time in Ghana for a change. PE firm African Infrastructure Investment Managers, together with the management team of the new Onix Data Centres Limited platform, have acquired a majority stake in Ngoya Etix DC Ltd, a carrier-neutral data center located in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The facility is expected to be the largest operational data center in Ghana once fully ramped-up.
MOBILE
2020 was a disaster for many, but a banner year for some. One of those who lucked out is mobile giant MTN, which saw a growth of 19.9% and an increase of 28.8 million subscribers last year, bringing the company’s total customer base to 279.6 million. More specifically, the operator reported a boost of 14.6% in Nigeria, 1.6% in South Africa, and 16.6% in Ghana. Internet traffic also grew by 110% courtesy of the lockdowns, leading a 31% boost in data revenue for the company.
VISUAL ARTS
It’s hard out there for artists, but a couple of funding opportunities have recently opened up. Germany’s Federal Cultural Foundation has launched TURN2, a program of Artistic Co-Creation between Germany and African countries consisting of a funding scheme for artistic and cultural projects, a residency and transcontinental academies. The 2021 Prince Claus Seed Awards program, which recognizes emerging artists and cultural practitioners whose work addresses pressing social and/or political issues, is also now taking applications. And in Ghana, Accra-based Gallery 1957 is launching the Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize - the first ever dedicated award for female African artists living and working in Africa. Named after the Ghanaian queen, the prize is open to all female and self-identifying female artists in Ghana or the Ghanaian diaspora.
Here’s one for the geeks. What do artists and mathematicians have in common? Their love of the golden ratio, the famed mathematical expression of Phi, an irrational number close to 1.618. The golden ratio, which is widely found in nature such as in the fractal forms of tree branches or snowflakes, is particularly pleasing to the eye and as such provides the framework for much of the graphic design profession today. In a recent article, scholars Audrey G. Bennett, Program Director at University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design, and Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals, argue that this design style may have roots in African culture. To support this thesis, Bennett points out that African design practices are often based on organic fractal forms, giving as examples the palace of the chief in Logone-Birni, Cameroon, and the scaling pattern of Ghana’s Kente cloth. In fact, the rows of Kente stripes are even organized following the Fibonacci sequence, from which the golden ratio can be derived… Now that’s material for a real African Da Vinci Code.
FASHION
Nineteen-year-old Kenyan internet sensation Elsa Majimbo is the new face of the venerable Italian fashion house Valentino. Majimbo’s lo-fi Instagram and TikTok videos, in which she delivers comedic one-liners about quarantine life while eating chips, went viral during the first lockdown, attracting millions of views from around the world. Since then Majimbo got herself a manager, an interview with Anderson Cooper, budding friendships with Chrissy Teigen and Usain Bolt, and partnership deals with Comedy Central, Bumble, Fenty and MAC. Her new gig with Valentino will also lead to the co-production of a book called The Alphabet for Kids & Adults. Oh, and she also happens to be a 15 times chess champion. No kidding.
MUSIC
In the latest episode of Naija No Dey Carry Last (Nigerians always finish first), Afrobeats star Burna Boy came up majorly on top last week, winning a coveted Best Global Music Album Grammy award for his album Twice As Tall. Burna Boy had already come close to a Grammy trophy last year but missed out to veteran Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo. But that’s not all: Nigeria scored another win thanks to Wizkid, who received a Grammy for Best Music Video for his collaboration with Beyonce on Brown Skin Girl. These successes, which were massively celebrated online across the continent, are clear signs of the global mainstreaming of African artists and creators.
And everyone wants a piece of it. Apple Music has just launched a new campaign titled Africa to the World, highlighting original and exclusive content from some of the biggest music stars and personalities on the continent. The collection includes episodes of DJ Cuppy's Africa Now radio show, radio and video interviews with artists like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Tems, or Black Coffee, episodes of Song Stories exploring the creative process behind some of Africa’s biggest hits, and guest playlists curated by Angelique Kidjo, Sauti Sol, Sho Madjozi, or Master KG. Meanwhile, Universal Music Group (UMG), one of the first global labels to recognize the potential of the African market, has signed an agreement to extend the licensing of its catalog on music service Boomplay from 7 to 47 African countries. Chinese-owned Boomplay is currently one of the leading music platforms on the continent with over 75 million users. In the past 5 years, UMG has opened offices in Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon and Morocco and launched or acquired stakes in several labels dedicated to African music, including Def Jam Africa, Motown Gospel Africa, AI Records and Afroforce1. It also distributes labels such as Kalawa Jazzmee, Aristokrat, Family Tree and Soulistic.
Determined not to let all the value created by local artists disappear into the pockets of global giants, Nigeria-based music distribution company Freeme Digital has launched a new platform called Freeme+ to provide A&R, marketing, sync licensing and publishing services for independent African rightsholders. The first signings to Freeme+ are sibling duo The Cavemen, Nigerian comedy legend Basketmouth and up-and-coming artist NINETY. Freeme Digital was founded by Michael Ugwu, former General Manager of Sony West Africa and current Merlin board member. Besides its new service Freeme+, the company supports local artists through its Freeme Music, Freeme TV, The Freeme Space and FM Publishing divisions.
Meanwhile in Senegal, several of the country’s top rappers (including Hakill, Dip Doundou Guiss and Canabasse) have taken to the mic to vocalize the feelings of young people protesting the arrest of popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko for rape, which they say was politically motivated. If the deadly unrest came as a surprise to those who saw Senegal as a beacon of stability, the #FreeSenegal movement has actually been a long time coming. In recent years, many Senegalese have grown increasingly frustrated with President Macky Sall’s inability to address issues such as unemployment and rising economic inequalities. Sonko’s arrest was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Newly elected Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Patrice Motsepe has made the issue of African football broadcast rights his priority. Since the CAF cancelled its media and marketing rights agreement with Lagardere in 2019, the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, Champions League and Confederation Cup matches have not been broadcast, leading to a loss of $200 million in revenue. Motsepe’s immediate challenge will be to get the CAF matches back on TV. The South African billionaire also voiced his ambition to see an African country win the FIFA World Cup in the next two tournaments.
Meanwhile, plans for the creation of a new, 20-member African Super League seems to be under way. The idea was initially shared over a year ago by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who suggested that such a new competition between Africa’s biggest clubs could generate over $200 million in revenue and become one of the world’s top sports leagues. It is not clear however whether the intention would be to supplant or supplement the CAF Champions League.
BROADCAST
WarnerMedia has revealed that its channels Cartoon Network and Boomerang now account for 47% of all kids’ pay-tv viewing in Africa, reaching 6 and 5.5 million households respectively. Both brands have also seen very strong growth in traffic to their websites and their YouTube channels. WarnerMedia (at the time Turner) started paying attention to the African market some 6 or 7 years ago, experimenting with content localization and investing time and resources to develop African animation talents. These early efforts now seem to be paying off.
VOD
Netflix is joining forces with South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) to boost the recovery of the South African creative industry from the pandemic. Both partners will jointly invest close to $2 million to produce 6 South African feature films, to the tune of $273,000 to $410,000 per film. All 6 films will premiere on Netflix first.
Staying in SA, Netflix has released the trailer for Dead Places, a new South African horror series that will launch on April 16. The show, about a writer who returns home to investigate a series of supernatural occurrences for his new book, was created by South African writer, director and award-winning author Gareth Crocker, already behind the Netflix series Shadow. Dead Places was also partially financed by Canal Plus, which has taken rights for French-speaking territories.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, the global streamer has announced an expanded partnership with star director Kunle Afolayan to produce and premiere 3 films: a historical drama, a folklore fantasy and a character drama. The first project, which just wrapped production, is an adaptation of Nigerian-American novelist Sefi Atta’s novel Swallow about a naive secretary-turned-drug mule in mid-1980s Lagos.
Moving east, the Kenya Film and Classification Board (KFCB) has suspended the second season of comedian Eric Omondi's Wife Material YouTube show after Omondi's arrest by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for contravening the country’s film and content regulations. The comedian was later released on a bail of $455 based on a mutual agreement with KFCB to settle out of court, with Omondi vowing to avoid producing “dirty content” and to make the show “cleaner” in the future. Wife Material, which a friend described to me as a “crass, soft porn version of The Bachelor”, is a reality show in which 9 female contestants compete for the attention of one man - in this case Omondi himself. While the censoring of that particular show may not be a big loss for the creative arts, this new (but not first) KFCB ban on digital content hosted on a global platform is worrying.
Finally in the US, Demand Africa, the streaming VOD service of The Africa Channel, has launched its premium subscription service on The Roku Channel, one of the top channels on the Roku platform with a reach of 61 million people. Demand Africa programming features African and diaspora films, TV series, comedy and lifestyle shows.
FILM
The final list of Oscars nominations is out and Africa bagged itself a Foreign Language Film nom courtesy of Tunisia’s The Man Who Sold His Skin by director Kaouther Ben Hania. The film is about a Syrian man who allows an artist to use his back as a canvas in order to get to Europe. Audience favorite My Octopus Teacher, a Netflix documentary directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed about filmmaker Craig Foster’s unlikely friendship with a wild octopus living in a South African kelp forest, is also nominated under the Best Documentary Feature category. Finally, South African filmmaker Michael Matthews’ Love & Monsters is also on the Oscars list in the Visual Effects category.
A not-too-shabby report card, despite the snubbing of Philippe Lacôte’s Night of the Kings, which prompted CNN to announce that Africa’s film industry was “spreading across borders”. My favorite quote in the article comes from Rok Studios’ CEO Mary Njoku, who said it all: "[Currently only] people in the upper-middle class can afford to stream, but it won't be like that forever. Technological promise will catch up and then the market will explode. So, we creatives just need to keep on creating amazing, compelling content and just wait. The African creative industry is young, dynamic, and ambitious. [We] have collectively created so much with so little. Imagine what the next decade looks like with major studio partnerships."
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
In this week’s roundup of African Hollywood moves, Showtime has given a series order to hour long drama Shaka: King of the Zulu Nation. The series, an epic drama centered around the legendary Zulu leader’s personal journey from stigmatized childhood to warrior king, was created and written by Nigerian-American Olu Odebunmi and Tolu Awosika, and is executive produced and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day). Also, Greek Freak, the Disney+ movie about Greek-Nigerian NBA star player Giannis Antetokounmpo directed by Akin Omotosho, has found its leads. Newcomer Uche Agada will star as Antetokounmpo, while Yetide Badaki and Dayo Okeniyi will play his parents.
Now, I’ll admit that when I sometimes want to give an example of a country where nothing much is happening business-wise, I often refer to the Central African Republic. Shame on me, as clearly I was wrong: CAR is about to have its own CSI: SVU with the upcoming release of Bangui, unité spéciale. The 10-episode crime investigation series is directed by Benenese filmmaker Elvire Adjamonsi and received close to $600,000 in funding from organizations such as ACP-EU Culture Fund and the International Francophonie Organization (OIF). It is not yet clear where the series will be broadcast, but I’ll keep you updated.
ANIMATION
Basement Animation’s project Joko & Dide has been selected for the Nigeria Focus at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Market (MIFA), which will take place God willing from June 15 to 18 this year. The announcement was made after a two-week workshop at the French Embassy in Lagos in collaboration with the 2021 Annecy festival and MIFA, through a development program for 10 projects supported by Animation Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the call for applications for the 5th edition of incubation and mentorship program Digital Lab Africa is now open. DLA targets innovative digital content from the perspective of form, storytelling and technologies in 5 categories: immersive experience, gaming, music, animation and digital art.
VIDEO GAMES
Cameroonian games development studio Kiro’o Games has launched a new campaign to raise additional financing through the Rebuntu Equity Crowdfunding platform, an innovative scheme which the studio developed inhouse. In 2019, Kiro’o announced that it hoped to raise up to $1 million by allowing private investors to buy shares online starting at around $500. Several months later, the startup said it had raised some $600,000 from 414 investors -- not reaching its goal but still encouraging. Technically, anyone can invest, although Kiro’o does perform a background check. While the company’s pitch deck and business plan are publicly available on the platform, the financials aren’t (one can expect that they would be shared at a later stage). With exits through acquisitions or public listings becoming more common in the African tech space, and digital entertainment startups starting to attract attention, Kiro’o’s model is certainly worth looking into.
SOCIAL MEDIA
In what is likely to be a game-changer for many social media users across Africa, Facebook is finally releasing its long-awaited Instagram Lite app in 170 countries globally. The simplified app, which requires only 2 MB to download as opposed to 30 MB for its full-size version, promises a high-quality Instagram experience using minimal data. Although Instagram is already widely used in Africa’s biggest urban centers such as Lagos, Johannesburg and Nairobi, its growth outside of the major connectivity and economic hot spots has been impeded by its data-heavy framework. Expect to see a major boost to Instagram’s African user-base in the months and years to come.
HUSTLE & FLOW #34: Liquid Telecom’s oversubscribed bond, Spotify expands Africa reach, animated series SuperSema launches on YouTube, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
It’s been a year since most of us started social distancing, working remotely, and forgetting planes even existed, but Spring is coming and I’ve decided to be positive today (albeit not forgetting about Senegal’s violent unrest and Ethiopia’s war crimes).
Last week, the first COVAX deliveries of the Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Senegal, while other countries received the direct purchases they had made from the manufacturers or donations from China, Russia, India and the UAE. In total, 14 African countries have now begun the vaccination process. It is far from enough of course, but it’s a start.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s economy defied all predictions and unexpectedly came out of recession in the 4th quarter of 2020. As growth in agriculture and telecommunications offset the sharp drop in oil production, there is hope that Africa’s largest market might recover from this annus horribilis much faster than initially feared.
Finally, African entertainment startups had their best funding year on record last year, raising a total of $13.9 million in 2020, almost 19 times what the sector had raised in 2019. The money went to Kenya’s Mdundo (music platform), South Africa’s Carry1st (video games) and Sea Monster (animation), and Ivory Coast’s StarNews Mobile (mobile video).
This winning streak continues this week in HUSTLE & FLOW as I’ll talk about Liquid Telecom’s massively oversubscribed bond, Spotify's expansion to 40 new African countries, and girl superheroes ruling the animation world. Stick around as well for some words on an ancient trading town rendered futuristic in black legos, the magazine cover-ready faces of Nefertiti and Akhenaten, a football talent scouting startup, Chinese moves in African media, and a possible District 9 sequel.
To subscribe or visit the archives, head over to www.restless.global/hustleflow. To those of you sending me LinkedIn invites: please remember that I do not know who you are, so a quick note introducing yourself and explaining that you are a HUSTLE & FLOW reader will go a long way in getting a response.
Happy reading,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Africa’s data race goes on unabated. A couple weeks ago, telecoms tycoon Strive Masiyiwa’s Liquid Telecom raised an impressive $840 million in a bond sale to refinance debt and expand further into Africa. The bond was 5.5 times oversubscribed, attracting more than 230 investor orders totaling $3.2 billion. The amount raised includes a $100 million investment by the International Finance Corporation, and other significant contributions by DEG and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund.
This month, Teraco also secured $168 million in loans from South African bank Absa and other lenders to finance the construction of what will be Africa’s largest data centre - a 38MW hyperscale facility in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg. Teraco Data Environments, which already is Africa’s largest data centre provider, is now considering expanding to Nigeria and Kenya.
MOBILE
MTN continues to offload its non-Africa assets with the planned sale of its 75% ownership in MTN Syria for $65 million. TeleInvest, which is currently MTN Syria's minority shareholder, is the likely buyer. MTN Syria contributes less than 1% to MTN Group's profit.
E-COMMERCE
Despite pandemic-related supply and logistics disruption to its operations in 2020, Jumia made significant progress towards profitability in its Q4 2020, reporting record gross profit and improvements to its cost structure after years of losses. According to Jumia, these solid numbers are the result of changes in its business model and not related to any “Covid boost”. Indeed - and perhaps surprisingly - the company shared that it had not observed a drastic change in consumer behavior or a significant acceleration in the adoption of e-commerce by consumers at the panafrican level. The e-commerce giant is now planning to launch in the DRC, Ethiopia and Angola, three markets known to be challenging.
EDUCATION
Post-production is a weak link in most African countries’ film sectors, and it is one gap that French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis intends to plug. Gomis’ Yennenga Center, which will open - Covid permitting - in April in Dakar, will provide a first cohort of 24 young people with a free two-year training course in post-production, covering editing, mixing and color grading.
VISUAL ARTS
The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto has acquired Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE, a colossal sculpture made from 100,000 pieces of Lego by the Ghanian-Canadian artist Ekow Nimako, who is known for his Afrofuturist reimaginings of Black histories built from the iconic Danish bricks. The town of Kumbi Saleh, located in present-day Mauritania, was the center of the trans-Saharan trade route at the height of the Ghana Empire, a cultural and commercial exchange hub between Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Nimako’s monumental sculpture (which has a distinct Star Wars’ Death Star quality to it) transports the ancient trading town 1,000 years in the future as a beautiful but somewhat ominous futuristic cityscape.
Dutch artist and photographer Bas Uterwijk has reconstructed the faces of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, King and Queen of Ancient Egypt, through artificial intelligence. Uterwijk used a software called “GAN” (generative adversarial network) which analyses portraits from various media - in this case ancient sculptures - and transforms the data into a current photographic interpretation. The result are remarkably modern-looking portraits, showing versions of the ancient royal couple that would be well at home on today’s fashion runways.
MUSIC
Global music streaming giant Spotify has launched into 40 new African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania, to the delight of many music fans across the continent. Spotify, which is available for free with ads or on subscription for its premium service, claims to have over 70 million tracks, 2.2 million podcasts, and more than 345 million global users. The platform’s Africa experience already includes more than 100 playlists across some of the most popular genres in the continent, including RADAR Africa, a playlist uncovering emerging artists from Africa and the diaspora. Spotify's African expansion sets it firmly on a collision course with established global rivals like Apple Music, Audiomack, Deezer, YouTube Music, and Tidal (just acquired by Square), as well as local players such as Boomplay (75 million users) and Mdundo (7 million users), all vying for a share of a booming market that is expected to grow to $493 million by 2025. As a customer, I have found that my Spotify premium account brings me more value than any of my other content subscriptions which range from Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO to the New York Times and Quartz Africa, as excellent as those may also be. It will be a tough one to beat.
SPORTS BUSINESS
This week presents a real potpourri of football news. According to the NGO Solidarity Football, more than 6,000 minors leave Africa each year to follow their dream of becoming professional football players in Europe. Seventy percent of them fail. Search Your Team (formerly FrenchSportTryouts), a startup founded in 2018 by entrepreneurs Wesley Mukerinkindi and Gaetan Ekoondo, wants to give amateurs a chance to be recruited from their home countries on the basis of a simple video. To compensate for the lack of visibility of African athletes, Search Your Team has formed a network with American universities and professional football clubs. Since the inception of the company, 9 talents have won athletic scholarships at US universities, and 4 have been onboarded (the others face visa challenges). Twenty-six players have also been scouted by professional or semi-professional clubs.
I called it a few months ago: South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe is likely to be elected president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on March 12, as rival candidates Augustin Senghor from Senegal and Ahmed Yahya from Mauritania have reportedly agreed to step aside. Both stand to be named CAF vice-presidents instead, which illustrates the kind of smart and pragmatic deal making that Motsepe can bring to the position. In fact, the South African businessman’s agenda is centered around making African football a successful business, instead of using the CAF as a cash generator for his own personal benefit which, unfortunately, seemed to have been the main driver for many of his predecessors. Motsepe’s ambitious program includes measures such as the generalization of video assistance to referees, the better television broadcasting of African matches, and the construction of at least one stadium to FIFA standards in each country. A strong and clean CAF leadership could provide much-needed inspiration to the entire African football sector which still is, for all intents and purposes, a hot mess.
Talking about messy situations, StarTimes is reportedly at risk of receiving a court-mandated winding-up order after it has repeatedly failed to pay the $11 million it owes BeIn Media Group for the rights to French football Ligue1. StarTimes acknowledged on-going legal proceedings in Hong Kong but denied it had been subjected to any court order. BeIn is particularly irritated that StarTimes has kept announcing the acquisition of more sports rights despite its huge debt. Right on cue, a few days ago the Pay TV operator announced a new partnership with Manchester United to distribute its MUTV channel to 30 Africa countries. Awkward.
Finally, The Guardian looks into Arsenal’s controversial $41.5 million sponsorship by Rwanda’s national tourism brand Visit Rwanda, which is up for renewal this summer. The initiative was reportedly very successful, lifting the country’s overall tourism numbers by 8%. But then there is the matter of Rwanda’s murky politics, which I mentioned in the last edition of HUSTLE & FLOW. “Where do we draw the line?” writes The Guardian. “Who do we deem acceptable from our own rather wobbly throne of judgment? Can we fly Emirates but not Visit Rwanda? Can we sell Saudi Arabia instruments of death but not a football club? This is simply football’s global landscape, a ziggurat of conflicting interests and messages, a place where nobody is really out of the murk.” Don't worry. I also didn't know what ziggurat means.
BROADCAST
This is the sad news of the week. Senegalese authorities have shut down Sen TV and Walf TV and partially restricted the internet in an effort to quell the protests that erupted last Wednesday after the arrest of former presidential candidate Ousmane Sonko. The key challenger to President Macky Sall is facing a rape trial that his supporters say has been politically orchestrated to prevent him from running in 2024.
Hunting, a Chinese TV series partially shot in Nairobi in 2019 reportedly attracted 250 million viewers when it was broadcast on China’s BTV-1, Dragon Television Chinese network. The series, which is based on true crime stories, focuses on a team tasked with tracking and capturing fugitives hiding in foreign countries. According to Kenyan company BlueSky, which serviced the shoot, the production spent over $900,000 to film a number of episodes in the country. Although Hunting’s storyline focuses on Chinese characters, it is clear that Africa-related content has barely scratched the surface of the potential it may hold on the Chinese market. Contrary to the long-held idea that Black content doesn’t travel in Asia and in China in particular, many signs (such as major investments by StarTimes, CCTV, Huawei, Boomplay and Huaha Media) point to a solid and growing Chinese interest in African media, which is likely to lead to some cross-pollination.
VOD
Case in point: UBettina Wethu, the upcoming South African adaptation of Ugly Betty produced by Known Associates and Moonlighting Films, has been acquired by Hong Kong-based PCCW’s VOD platform Viu, which also boarded the series as co-producers. This will be Viu’s first foray into original content in South Africa. The service, which launched in South Africa in 2019, said it may produce up to 10 original series next year, and as many as 20 the following year. Viu joins other, more established players in bringing exciting new opportunities to the South African content market. Multichoice’s Showmax has already produced nearly a dozen originals (including Love Island, which came under fire last week for being #ohsowhite), and is ramping up its commitment to high-end drama series with the goal to produce 2 to 3 titles with international partners a year. Meanwhile Netflix has greenlit a number of yet-to-be-announced projects and plans to continue investing heavily. Among the US streamer’s upcoming releases is South African comedian Loyiso Gola’s Unlearning comedy hour, the first African solo full hour of stand up comedy. Finally, although there is no talk of investment in original content for its VOD service TracePlay, music pay TV group Trace TV is also increasing its reach on the South African OTT market through a strategic partnership with Huawei which will see its video content pre-installed and integrated with the Huawei video app.
The steady march of VOD also continues across the rest of the continent, albeit more slowly than in South Africa or Nigeria. In Kenya, Safaricom’s latest attempt to launch a video service that would capture the local market is called Baze. The new platform will offer a revenue split of 60% to the content providers and 40% to Safaricom, a welcome reversal of the common practice in the African mobile space which typically sees operators keep up to 75% of the revenue. And in Cameroon, Netflix has made its first local acquisitions by signing up the movies Therapy and Fisherman’s Diary.
FILM
Despite major disruptions to its theatrical business caused by the pandemic and the #endSARS protests, leading Nigerian studio FilmOne managed to produce 7 feature films in 2020, 4 of which were on sale at the European Film Market (EFM) last week. According to Variety, “the slate reflects FilmOne’s aspirations to tap into the growing appetite for African content with the sorts of slick, commercial fare that can strike a chord with audiences overseas.”
British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo's directorial debut film The Water Man has been picked up by Netflix for worldwide distribution, after a successful premiere at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. Inspired by the iconic movie E.T, The Water Man is a supernatural film with Black leads.
The Doha Film Institute has unveiled the list of 48 projects selected to take part in its 2021 Qumra masters program. Nine of these projects are co-productions with an African country, including Tug of War, the first feature of acclaimed Tanzanian filmmaker Amil Shivji. The film, which is based on a book, tells the story of a runaway Indian-Zanzibari bride who forms a strong bond with a young communist in the winding alleyways of 1950s British colonial Zanzibar. Less Is More (LIM), a European development scheme for limited-budget feature films, has also unveiled its 7th edition selection of 16 projects, which include films from Uganda and South Africa.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Renowned Nigerian director Andrew Dosunmu will direct Winston Duke (Black Panther) as Marcus Garvey in the film Marked Man for Amazon Studios. The film is partly inspired by the Colin Grant biography Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, and the script written by acclaimed Black British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah. Interesting trivia: Kwei-Armah’s was born as Ian Roberts from Grenadan parents, but he changed his name at the age of 19 after tracing his family history to Ghana through the slave trade.
Ever since District 9’s massive success at the box office in 2009, South African director Neill Blomkamp has entertained the idea of making a sequel. Blomkamp has now revealed that he and writing partners Sharlto Copley and Terri Tatchell were in the process of writing a District 10 screenplay.
ANIMATION
Super Sema, a new animated series developed by Kenya-based Kukua is set to debut on YouTube today March 8th, on International Women’s Day. Founded in 2015 by 28-year-old Italian entrepreneur Lucrezia Bisignani, Kukua is a pan-African education startup building a suite of educational tools, including game-based apps and the new Super Sema series, that teach children reading, writing and maths. Super Sema is the name of the series' girl superhero, who operates in an African-futuristic world where along with her brother MB, she uses all her "technovating" powers to save her village from the villain Tobor. The show was written by Claudia Lloyd, the BAFTA-award winning producer of Tinga Tinga Tales, and directed by Lynne Southerland, the first female African-American director for Disney. To add to this high-profile list of collaborators, none other than Hollywood royalty Lupita Nyong’o is boarding the project as a voice actor, executive producer, and investor in Kukua.
In the same week, Disney+, Disney Junior and France Télévisions have announced that they had picked up Kiya, a series about a group of 7-year-old African girls whose magical headbands turn them into superheroes, developed by South Africa’s Triggerfish, Hasbro’s eOne, and France’s Frog Box. Kiya is expected to release in 2023, and plans are also in place to create YouTube content, music, apps, audio, toys and other consumer products based on the IP. You may remember that Triggerfish is also behind the upcoming Mama K’s Team 4, Netflix’s first animated original about 4 scrappy teen girls superheroes from Lusaka, Zambia. Now, the animated African girl superhero space may just be getting a tiiiny bit crowded.
HUSTLE & FLOW #33: Mastercard and MTN launch virtual payment solution, Abidjan is where Live Music is at, Will Smith Comes to Africa, and more
Lire en français avec Google Translate / Leia em português com Google Translate
Dear colleagues and friends,
Good news is so rare these days that it is worth making a big deal out of it. As expected, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made history a week ago when she became the first woman and the first African to become Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. Nigerian women took to social media to celebrate the occasion by posting pictures of themselves wearing Okonjo-Iweala’s signature Ankara look under the hashtag #BeLikeNgoziChallenge.
Okonjo-Iweala was not the only African to reach great heights in the aristocratic world of multinational institutions last week. A few days later, Former Finance and Economy Minister of Senegal Makhtar Diop became the first African appointed Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector arm.
Okonjo-Iweala and Diop are welcomed role models in a grayscale world where hero-picking can be a hit or miss - as illustrated by the recent falls from grace of Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Ky and Abiy Ahmed.
In Rwanda, it’s a proper Hollywood hero who is now on trial. Paul Rusesabagina, the former manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines played by Don Cheadle in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, was arrested last year in circumstances worthy of a spy movie (it involved a Burundian pastor working as double-agent). Rusesabagina, also a politician and a long-time detractor of Paul Kagame’s regime, is now being prosecuted for “terrorism, murder and financing rebellion”. The context is complex and murky as is everything in the Rwandan political sphere, which by the way could be a great setting for an African version of House of Cards. But considering that I have never been to Rwanda, albeit not for lack of trying (I was kicked out at the border back in 2007, a story for another day), I will reserve my opinion on the matter. In any case, the time is ripe for the release on March 30th of acclaimed journalist Michela Wrong’s new book: Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about a potentially-groundbreaking new virtual payment solution launched by Mastercard and MTN; Black French rappers flocking to Abidjan to hold live concerts in front of actual people; and Black Hollywood royalty Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith signing with the no-less regal Mo Abudu of EbonyLand. But read on also for some words on Kenya’s whimsical public libraries, South African label Maxhosa in Zamunda, Fela’s Rock and Roll Hall legacy, Iroko’s stock exchange ambitions, a Nigerian-Indian love story, and a podcast about African masculinity, among other juicy tidbits.
If you’ve received this edition of HUSTLE & FLOW from a well-intentioned colleague, make sure to subscribe and check out the archives at www.restless.global/hustleflow. I always love to hear from you so drop me a note at marie@restless.global or on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @marieloramungai (but please, I’m begging you, no more Clubhouse invites).
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Am I hammering the data center nail on the head? Yes, yes I am. A new report curated by The African Data Centres Association and Xalam Analytics reveals that Africa will need 1,000 MW and 700 data centre facilities to meet the ever-increasing demand for data as broadband users are expected to double across the continent in the next 10 years. To get a sense of the size of the gap, there were only 62 data centres with 139 facilities in 26 countries in Africa in August 2020. Now I’m hearing from investors that they can’t find enough projects to acquire or finance. Have a lead? Send it my way and I will transmit.
MOBILE
Foreign investors’ enthusiasm for the freshly liberalized Ethiopian telecommunications sector has expectedly cooled off as the country remains mired in a months-long conflict in its northern region. Last year, leading international operators such as Vodacom, MTN, Etisalat and Orange had all expressed interest to acquire telecommunications licences in Africa’s last major greenfield market. But now the Ethiopian Communications Authority says it is still waiting on bids to come through, despite two new licenses being available.
There are however other lucrative deals to be made elsewhere. In Angola, Africell has finalised an agreement to become the country’s fourth mobile operator after Movicel, Unitel and state-owned Angola Telecom. Africell currently services some 12 million subscribers in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and DRC. In 2018, the company secured a $100 million loan from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to fund its Africa expansion strategy. Meanwhile, South African mobile giant MTN is also going forward with its new Africa-centric strategy, selling its 20% stake in Belgacom for $121.41 million with the goal to reduce debt and reinvest in its operations on the continent.
E-COMMERCE
Mastercard and MTN have partnered to launch a virtual payment solution linked to MTN MoMo (Mobile Money) wallets that would allow millions of consumers in 16 countries across Africa to access global e-commerce platforms. The service is available regardless of whether or not the customer has a bank account, and is potentially a game changer. Indeed, such a solution would not only allow individual consumers to purchase goods from international online merchants, but also empower small businesses to pay for services or supplies not available locally.
In Ivory Coast, a thriving informal digital economy is developing thanks to small business owners who are finding that selling their goods on social media allows them to circumvent high retail rents and government bureaucracy. The popularity of these businesses, offering everything from imported clothes to hand-made jewelry, is fueling a second economy of “motorcycle boys” who handle delivery. All to the displeasure of the government, which does not receive any tax revenue from this alternative distribution channel.
LITERATURE
Black and African futuristic science fiction has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years, with writers now being more intentional about telling stories centered around African characters. If you are new to the genre, Tor.com has a useful guide to help you get started. The list, which includes books like Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift, or Nicky Drayden’s The Prey of Gods, focuses on Africanfuturism, a subcategory of science fiction in which the themes, characters, and roots of the story are based in Africa. The term was coined by writer Nnedi Okorafor, who uses it to distinguish her work from Afrofuturism, which refers to stories from outside of the African continent featuring Black people from the diaspora.
In 2017, Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka founded Book Bunk, a social impact firm working to restore some of Nairobi’s iconic public libraries. There is something Don Quixote-esque about the idea of bringing Kenyan public libraries back to life in the era of TikTok, but the two women are veterans of the creative space and the results are definitely Instagram-worthy. Now you can follow Angela and Wanjiru’s journey in Book Bunk’s podcast A Palace for The People.
FASHION
As the global conversation around the creative industries’ potential to power the economic growth of the African continent takes more and more prominence, one key area of debate is how to protect African traditional products, crafts, and knowledge from counterfeiting or appropriation. Solutions could come from the implementation of legal tools such as patents, trademarks or geographical indications. One interesting case study comes from Burkina Faso, where a new trademark for the production of the local Faso Dan fani loincloth has recently been established to protect the traditional textile from made-in-Asia counterfeits. The trademark was developed based on a certain set of criteria which include the use of local thread and die. Several cloth weavers have now received approval and will be producing and marketing Faso Dan fani textiles tagged with a physical label, which customers can scan with their smartphones to check the product’s provenance.
A new opportunity to admire African textiles is coming to London in 2022, thanks to the V&A Museum’s upcoming exhibition disappointingly entitled “African Fashion”. The exhibition intends to celebrate the global impact of fashion from the continent by focusing on the works of 20th century designers Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria), Chris Seydou (Mali), and Kofi Ansah (Ghana), and contemporary Nigerian designer Alphadi. Interestingly, the museum has issued a public call-out for personal objects, including 20th century kente, bògòlanfini, khanga and commemorative cloths from the independence and liberation years, and made-to-order garments, including aso ebi. If you have any of those in your cupboards, email the V&A at africafashion@vam.ac.uk.
Set to be released on Amazon Prime on March 5th, Coming 2 America, the sequel to the iconic 1998 comedy, is the next Hollywood blockbuster to spotlight African creatives. The film’s trailer shows star Eddy Murphy and South African actress Nomzamo Mbatha wearing South African fashion designer Laduma Ngxololo’s distinctive knitwear label Maxhosa. And Zamunda wouldn’t be what it is without a few Nigerians in the mix, so keep your eyes peeled as well for cameos by Afrobeats king Davido, actress Lola Adamson, singer and actor Rotimi Akinoso, and actor, musician and director Olaolu Winfunke.
MUSIC
In an interesting turn of events, while concerts remain banned in France and in most of Europe, the Ivorian capital Abidjan is becoming the place to be for Black French artists in search of a connection with their audience. After a short lockdown in March 2020, Ivory Coast quickly reopened its theatres, bars and nightclubs. Besides some much needed revenue (between 20,000 and 100,000 euros per concert), in Abidjan major French rappers such as Niska, Gims, Kaaris, Ninho, Youssoupha and Le Juiice are also finding an intoxicating energy. For these artists, who themselves hail from the African diaspora, reconnecting with the rhythms and sounds of the continent means renewed inspiration - but also business development. Universal Music, Sony Music, Apple Music and Spotify all have boots on the ground, betting on the future growth of “rap ivoire” and of music streaming platforms in francophone West Africa.
Making the case for the long-term value of African musical assets, Afrobeat legend and revolutionary Fela Kuti has been nominated for induction into the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 24 years after his death. Despite solid competition from 15 other major artists including Jay-Z, LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, and Tina Turner, Fela is currently leading with 153,189 votes (Tina Turner comes next with 136,621) thanks to massive social media mobilization by Nigerians. Can Naija be beat? Standby for the announcement of the winner in May. In any case, Fela’s legacy lives strong, thanks in part to his talented family. His son Femi Kuti and grandson Made Kuti have recently released a joint album called Legacy +, blending old and new variants of Afrobeat with the kind of socially conscious lyrics that the older Kuti would be proud of.
SPORTS BUSINESS
FIFA, the African Union, and the African Champions League (CAF) have partnered to launch a schools football competition that would kick off in DRC and extend to other countries across Africa. According to the partners, the aim of the project would be “to improve lives and to harness the possibilities it offers to instill positive values in young people”.
BROADCAST
As global steaming platforms continue their steady path towards world domination, Multichoice is getting increasingly worried about the future of its Pay TV business across Africa. The operator has appealed to industry regulators to take urgent action to protect it against services like Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, HBO Now and Peacock, which Multichoice sees as “competitive existential threats”. The Pay TV giant is not overreacting - its lucrative premium subscription has already recorded a steep decline. One of the ways Multichoice is fighting back is by investing in a “hyper-local” content strategy. According to CEO Calvo Mawela, the company has already spent over $135 million on local content productions across the continent, with the goal to bring the share of local content on its various channels to 45%.
In the Free-To-Air space, South African public broadcaster SABC may be turning a corner. The struggling company reported positive results from its turnaround strategy implemented nearly a year ago, selling out primetime advertising inventory for two of its channels in November 2020 for the first time since 2015.
VOD
Iroko TV CEO Jason Njoku has announced that he plans to list the company on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2022. This is not a new idea for Njoku - earlier plans to take the company public were shelved when the pandemic hit. Since its launch in 2011, Iroko has alternated between focusing on its international or local audience, in a bid to find the winning formula. In 2020, a deadly cocktail of sharp economic downturn and currency devaluation in Nigeria made it clear that Iroko’s salvation could only come from abroad. The LSE listing aims to raise between $20-30 million, valuing the company at $80-100 million.
Meanwhile, Netflix’s winning streak with Nollywood films continues. Namaste Wahala, a romcom which follows an Indian-Nigerian couple on their rollercoasting journey to marriage, was released on Valentine’s Day and went on to hit the platform’s top 10 list of most popular movies in the world. Not everybody liked the movie though, which some critics called a missed opportunity. On the series front, Netflix’s progress has been slower, with several projects in Nigeria or South Africa suffering delays or cancelations. My guess is that Netflix is finding itself faced with the realities of a market where most writers and producers are completely new to the development process. Season 2 of Blood and Water, however, is definitely a go for later this year: the streamer recently released a behind-the-scenes video showing some of the new additions to its cast.
Showmax has commissioned a South African version of the Banijay dating reality show Temptation Island. The platform recorded huge growth and engagement last year with its release of the 10th season of the uber-popular Big Brother Naija, and is no doubt hoping to repeat the same success with Temptation Island, another tried-and-tested reality format that plays to the African audience’s taste for relationship-based content.
Finally, yet another player is coming to the party in South Africa: BritBox, the joint platform of BBC Studios and ITV, is set to enter the country in the second half of 2021, following successful launches of the platform in the U.S, Canada, the U.K. and Australia.
FILM
Night of the Kings, the last, very buzzy film of Ivorian filmmaker Philippe Lacôte, has been shortlisted for this year's Academy Awards. The movie, which is only the third-ever Oscar submission made by Ivory Coast, has attracted the interest of Nigerian-British actor David Oyelowo who has come on board as Executive Producer. Whatever happens on Oscar night, Lacôte, who already has a 20-year career behind him, seems set for his Hollywood debut.
In an extremely challenging global environment for indie film finance, South African director Sibs Shongwe-La Mer’s sophomore feature Halo Daze has attracted equity financing from SK Global. It is the first foray into African cinema for the company, who is behind global hits Crazy Rich Asians and Delhi Crime. Halo Daze’s international sales will be handled by Pape Boye and Eric Tavitian’s Paris-based Black Mic Mac, a new venture fully dedicated to African content. Another lucky (and probably deserving) South African film is the horror-thriller Gaia, which is set to debut in the Midnight section of virtual SXSW in March and was picked up by XYZ Films who will sell worldwide rights excluding Africa.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
And now to the biggest news of the week: EbonyLife Studio and its unstoppable CEO Mo Abudu have signed a deal with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Westbrook Studios to co-develop and co-produce a slate of Afrocentric films and TV shows. The projects include the series Dada Safaris, which follows the life of four female friends who have to make big decisions, and The Gods, about married academics who discover seven long forgotten African gods, as well as the romcom movie Are We Getting Married? If you’ve been following, you know that EbonyLife also has projects in development with Netflix, Sony Pictures, and AMC. This is undoubtedly impressive, but the reality is that this is just the tip of the iceberg as Hollywood players have been ramping up their behind-the-scenes involvement with Nollywood in the past 6 months. You can expect a slew of similar announcements, from a variety of Nigerian creators, in the months to come.
In a completely different genre comes a fully African show that has secured distribution in the US: N*Gen (pronounced "engine”), a science TV show developed by 6 Ugandan teachers and targeted at school children, debuted early February on The Africa Channel. The show, which featured mostly female presenters and guests, looks at science through an African lens. Presenters give short lessons on topics such as bees, robots, sounds, water and paleontology, and conduct science experiments with students. Funded and produced by East African nonprofit Peripheral Vision International, N*Gen also broadcasts clips sent in by teachers from across the continent. It is wholesome and innovative - I’m a fan.
ANIMATION
Kenyan Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o is bringing Sulwe, her 2019 children's picture book about a dark-skinned 5-year-old girl, to the screen. After reading the book in full for Netflix's Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices series back in October, Nyong'o will now produce an animated musical version for the streamer.
PODCAST
Turns out there is such a thing as Africa Podcast Day, and apparently it took place on February 12. One of the featured podcasts was Dans La Tête Des Hommes (In the Mind of Men), a series co-produced by Africanews and Euronews which explores the pressures of masculinity in Africa and how men challenge age-long stereotypes surrounding manhood.
And for those of you interested in jumping on the podcast bandwagon, the Radio Workshop is offering a free online African Podcast Workshop which will take place between April and June 2021. If you are between 18 and 35 years old and a resident in an African country, you can apply here before March 7, 2021.
HUSTLE & FLOW #32: The real winners of African fashion; the Ark of the Covenant in danger; Comic Books company YouNeek takes off, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
This pandemic is like one of these multiple-parts Nollywood movies which, after serving us with a choice of several acceptable endings, decides to keep going for one more. This last one, dubbed The week Redditors armed with stimulus checks took on Wall Street, has been one of my favorites so far. And the storyline is not over yet. Not unexpectedly, the little guys are getting crushed as the euphoria wears out, while the sirens of Hollywood are turning WallStreetBets into Lord of the Flies. It may also be time for new regulations.
Talking about the control of obscure financial tools, the Central Bank of Nigeria recently announced that it had banned the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the country. If you haven’t followed the saga of how Nigeria became the world’s second crypto market in the world after the US, that’s another good one.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is finally set to be confirmed at the head of the World Trade Organization. The appointment of Okonjo-Iweala as the first African to hold the position, in the same year that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is set to launch, is a great strategic opportunity for the continent. More specifically on the topic that interests us here, we can hope that Okonjo-Iweala will take a look at past WTO policies that have destroyed the once-thriving textile market in several African countries, including her own.
I’ll take this opportunity to look at who are the real winners of African fashion in this week’s edition of HUSTLE & FLOW. I will also talk about the sacred Ark of the Covenant which, tragically, may have been destroyed or stolen (and not by the Nazis this time), and about recent and future dealmaking in the African comic book space. Read on as well for tidbits on the continent’s great data race, Jumia’s phoenix rise, Mr Eazi’s plans to turn fans into investors, the search for elusive content development executives, and African Empire Warriors.
In housekeeping news, I have finally gotten around to making some technical improvements to HUSTLE & FLOW, so hopefully more of you will be receiving it in your inbox this week instead of it getting stuck in your spam. New also is the option to automatically translate this newsletter in French, Portuguese, or your language of choice by clicking on the link just below the header. This is an experiment as I strive to engage more non-English speakers, so please let me know if it’s helpful or not.
If you enjoy HUSTLE & FLOW, don’t hesitate to share it with your contacts. They can subscribe, and read all previous editions on my website. And as always, I remain reachable at marie@restless.global or on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter @marieloramungai.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
It’s been a minute since I talked about Africa’s biggest investment opportunity of this decade, one that gives me FOMO about not working in private equity: internet infrastructure in general, and data centers in particular. For those new to the party, the Financial Times has an in-depth article this week about what it calls Africa’s “great data race”. If Africa’s internet traffic was already growing fast before the pandemic, it is now exploding, and becoming more local. Major data center operators like Teraco, Rack Center and Africa Data Center have attracted hundreds of millions in investment. Driven by a pressing need to limit latency, lower costs, and protect data sovereignty, countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya have also all established local internet exchange points which have seen their peak traffic surge - up to 400 times in Nigeria in the past 8 years. Considering that the number of Africans connected to the internet is expected to grow by 200 million by 2025, this is just the beginning.
MOBILE
As I often say, telcos are Africa’s overlords - they basically run the show. Competition is so intense, that typically two different mobile operators wouldn’t even think about working together. However, in Nigeria’s Ondo State MTN and 9mobile have piloted a free-roaming scheme, allowing each operator’s customers to switch to the other’s network depending on coverage. The experiment has run smoothly, and the two companies will now be requesting permission from the regulator for a full roaming agreement.
E-COMMERCE
As we are approaching the one-year anniversary of the pandemic (gasp), the impact of this extraordinary event on Africa’s e-commerce space is coming into focus. One big winner is Jumia, which clearly didn’t let this good crisis go to waste. By quickly implementing a series of smart decisions, the leading e-commerce player managed to recover from the negative publicity that followed its IPO and regain its unicorn status, with the company’s shares now reaching $60 from a low of less than $3. So what worked? Well in the past year Jumia closed its operations in some countries, moved to a third-party model, cut its advertising budget, and refocused on selling basic household items rather than luxury products like smartphones, and as a result the company finally put an end to its long history of losses.
The pandemic was also kind to Abidjan-based fashion and design platform Afrikrea, which had its best year ever in 2020 with over $7.2 million in transactions. Interestingly, the company reported that the majority of its sales originated in Africa but that these products were then sent to Europe. The online seller, which was co-founded in 2015 by CEO Moulaye Taboure and has since raised over $2 million in funding, is becoming a stable revenue channel for hundreds of small creative businesses, with 3 shops making over $120,000 and 52 over $12,000 last year.
LITERATURE
The multi-talented Blitz Bazawule, just off a hot 2020 where he co-directed Beyonce’s visual album Black Is King and was subsequently attached to direct The Color Purple feature musical, is now a published author. The filmmaker and musician’s debut novel, The Scent of Burnt Flowers, has been acquired by Ballantine Books and is slated for release in 2022. The story of the book is full of suspense and takes place in very colorful 1960s Ghana, so all signs point for a movie version, directed by Bazawule himself, to follow soon.
VISUAL ARTS
With the opening of its new space on Melrose Avenue, Nigeria’s Rele Gallery becomes the first contemporary African gallery to take root in Los Angeles. The gallery’s first LA exhibition will showcase three Nigerian female artists: Marcellina Akpojotor, Tonia Nneji, and Chidinma Nnoli. Founder Adenrele Sonariwo established Rele’s first outpost in Lagos in 2015. In 2017, she was the lead curator of the Nigerian Pavilion for the 57th Venice Biennial.
PERFORMING ARTS
Lagos-based cultural centre Terra Kulture, is a key player of the vibrant theater space in Nigeria, has partnered with the French ENSATT (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Techniques du Theatre) to launch the Terra Academy for the Arts (TAFTA).
HERITAGE
As the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region continues in a climate of international indifference, one of the world’s most sacred religious artefacts may be in danger of destruction. The biblical Ark of the Covenant, said to contain the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments and made famous in global pop culture by Indiana Jones in the Raiders of the Lost Ark (one of the Greatest Films of All Time), has been hidden from view for thousands of years. But many believe that it is housed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Aksum, which was recently the site of a massacre followed by looting. International heritage experts have raised the alarm over the impact of the on-going conflict on Ethiopia’s sacred sites and their invaluable cultural heritage.
GASTRONOMY
In South Africa, the latest in a series of alcohol sales bans since the start of the pandemic has left winemakers with a surplus of 300 million liters (around 400 million bottles) - nearly half of last year’s harvest. But around the world, South African wines are gaining in popularity. Last year, the US joined the UK and the Netherlands among top export destinations. South Africa is the world’s ninth largest producer of wine, which contributed almost $2 billion to the country’s $351 billion GDP in 2019.
FASHION
French-Somali entrepreneur and Afrobytes co-founder Haweya Mohamed has launched The Colors, a new fashion platform to promote cosmetics and fashion creations for people of African descent. More specifically, two training tracks, La Fabrique for cosmetics and L’Atelier for fashion, will help entrepreneurs develop their brands and leverage digital tools to grow their business.
A new twist in the long-running debate about the cultural appropriation of African culture by Western fashion brands: what happens when the Western designer in question is of African descent? Sparking this new controversy is Virgil Abloh’s latest Louis Vuitton collection - themed Ebonics/Snake Oil/The Black Box/Mirror, Mirror - which features a tracksuit adorned with Kente, a traditional Ghanain textile. The show’s notes explain the intention behind the collection: “If Kente cloth—the fabric of Virgil Abloh’s cultural heritage—is rendered in tartan, does that make Kente any less Ghanaian and tartan any less Scottish? Provenance is reality, while ownership is myth: man made inventions now ripe for reinvention.” In many ways, Abloh, who was born to immigrant Ghanain parents, is in an impossible situation: as one of very few Black designers on the world stage, he is expected to speak for the global Black community. But at the same time, he also represents an iconic European fashion house. To find our way out of this mess, African fashion insiders suggest using one question as our compass: in the end, who benefits?
That’s a question that may have crossed the mind of Winston Udeagha, founder of Winston Leather, when his company celebrated its biggest sales in its 30 years in business last June. Winston Leather’s tannery in Kano, northern Nigeria, supplies leather to luxury fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton (again) and Ralph Lauren. But because EU laws stipulate that the country of origin of finished goods is where the final production process occurs, Winston’s clients never had to use the Made in Africa tag, instead branding their products as Made in Italy, for example, keeping the Nigerian company in obscurity. Realizing the growing potential of the local African market, Udeagha launched its own brand of leather accessories in 2018. And then everything changed last June, when a tweet about the tannery from fashion historian Shelby Christie resurfaced in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement encouraging more people to support Black businesses. That tweet is how I got to know about Winston Leather myself. By correcting misconceptions about the quality of African leather goods, it prompted a flood of orders. So let’s ask ourselves again, who benefits from the current structures of the global fashion trade?
MUSIC
Sony Music West Africa and pan-African digital entertainment channel WatsUp TV have partnered to promote artists in the subregion. The move comes a month after a delegation from Sony traveled to Ghana as part of a scouting and partnership exercise.
In July last year, Mr Eazi, the Nigerian Afropop superstar and African Jay-Z in the making (I’ve called it months ago, we’ll circle back on this in 5 years), launched a $20 million African Music Fund dedicated to financing African creatives. For Mr Eazi, artists are like startups and labels like VCs. By his estimates, while major music labels control about 60% of musical Intellectual Property in the rest of the world, they only own about 2% of the music IP in Africa - suggesting that many African artists are largely independent, a huge opportunity for investors. Now, Mr Eazi says that he wants to explore the possibility of allowing fans to own equity in his songs for his next album, essentially turning them into retail investors (waiting for the MrEaziBets subreddit) and unlocking funding for artists to invest in things like branding and marketing.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Now, here is a show concept that has the potential of being widely entertaining: Africa Sports Venture Group is launching Africa Empire Warrior, a new program which will pit against each other candidates from Africa’s 54 countries representing 12 ancient kingdoms such as the Benin, Songhai, Malian, and Ghana empires. The show aims at showcasing the strength, agility, endurance, power, and ultimate fitness of the contestants, while tapping into the history of ancient African warriors. The first season is expected to shoot in Liberia in 2022.
VOD
Kenya has introduced a new Digital Services Tax, which impose a 1.5% levy on gross income derived from downloadable digital content such as mobile apps, movies, music, e-books and podcasts. Tanzania and Uganda have already implemented similar measures. The move will of course irk companies operating in the digital content space, but these conversations will become unavoidable in Africa like elsewhere as huge sectors of the economy continue to dematerialize.
Meanwhile, MultiChoice's Showmax announced that it was offering new subscribers a “buy one month, get two months free” deal, just as it teased its lineup of Showmax Originals, which include Laycon (Nigeria’s first Showmax original), Crime and Justice (Kenya’s first original), DAM (a new South African psychological thriller), as well as the second season of the South African comedy show Tali's Wedding Diary.
CINEMA
South Africa's biggest movie theater chain, Ster-Kinekor, is going into business rescue. With 55 cinema halls and a combined capacity of 64,000 seats across the country, the company had previously been healthy and profitable, but like many other cinema chains worldwide it was hardly hit by the Covid lockdowns.
FILM
Softie, the little Kenyan documentary that could, has been nominated for the prestigious Producers Guild Awards. Back in January last year, it became the first Kenyan film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Sam Soko and produced by Toni Kamau, the documentary tells the story of Boniface "Softie" Mwangi, an idealistic photojournalist and part-time musician who squares off against a corrupt political system. It is now available online in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, the US, UK and Canada.
As the 6th edition of short film festival Quartier Lointains, whose theme this year was “Afrofuturistik”, closes its doors in Abidjan, Jeune Afrique publishes a profile of its founder Claire Diao. I talked about Diao, a journalist, editor of the film magazine Awotele, and founder of distributor company Sudo Connexion, when she and her team resigned from the Canal+ show Cine Le Mag after being censored by the channel.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
In the first deal of this kind between a Hollywood studio and a Nigerian company, EbonyLife Media has signed an exclusive first-look agreement with Sony Pictures Television to develop scripted TV series. The two-year agreement is a continuation of the existing relationship between the two companies, who have been collaborating for the past three years on the development of several projects including an action drama inspired by the female Dahomey Warriors. Recently, EbonyLife also announced the launch of its Ebonylife Creative Academy (ELCA), a free program of short creative and practical filmmaking courses developed in partnership with the Lagos State Creative Industries Initiative (LSCII).
A few months ago, Netflix and the Realness Institute launched their Episodic Lab program to give writers from Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa the opportunity to develop their story concepts, with the possibility of having these stories adapted for production by Netflix. Now, Netflix and Realness have announced that the initiative was being expanded to include development executives from across Africa and the diaspora. What is a development executive, you may ask? It is the person sitting on the production company, studio, or buyer’s side who works with the creators and writers of a project to help turn it into the best version of itself. Development executives have a strong grasp of character, story, and structure, and are instrumental to the content production ecosystem. Unfortunately, aside from a few creative producers and a handful of people at Multichoice, Canal+ and Netflix, they basically don’t exist in Africa yet. Actually, I am looking for one myself, so if you know anyone, send them my way.
COMIC BOOKS
I have talked about YouNeek in a couple previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW, and this was just a matter of time: the comic book company, founded by Nigerian-born Doye Okupe, has secured a groundbreaking deal with Dark Horse Comics (home to Hellboy, Sin City and Umbrella Academy) to publish all its graphic novels, which are based on African history and mythology. Some of the titles to be rolled out as a result of this deal include Malika: Warrior Queen and Iyanu, Child of Wonder, which is centered around an orphan with superpowers. In addition, VC firm Impact X Capital will also be supporting YouNeek’s development of an Afrocentric animated series. As I wrote two weeks ago, the African comic book space is very hot right now, and I am hearing that similar deals will be announced in the next few weeks and months.
ANIMATION
Comic book properties are of course ideal IP to turn into animated series, and the only thing standing in the way of Africa becoming a major center for animation creation, production and outsourcing is the lack of training opportunities on the continent. Now, Netflix and the world-famous French animation school Les Gobelins are offering scholarships for 6 African students for the September 2021 intake. The scholarships will cover the full tuition fees for 3 students to attend the Gobelins’ 3-year BA program, and for 3 others to complete a 2-year Masters of Arts.
HUSTLE & FLOW # 31: The Secret Senegalese Supremacy; Ghana Football Academy sells big; Omo Ghetto breaks Naija BO record, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
HUSTLE & FLOW is back.
Depending on whether you believe that 2021 started on January 1st or January 20th, I may be a little late or right on time to wish you all a Happy New Year. We still can’t travel and we still can’t touch each other, but at least we can breathe a little easier under our masks since America has rejoined the adults’ table.
With a swift stroke of the presidential pen, Joe Biden has already reversed many of the most repulsive Trump-era policies, including the various travel bans that targeted visitors from Libya, Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea, Nigeria, or Somalia. Deputy Treasury secretary Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo and health policy adviser Osaremen Okolo, both Nigerian-American, are also making their entry into the most diverse US administration in history.
The amount of gold-standard memes that the US inauguration gave us almost made us forget that Uganda was going through its own chaotic elections. However, there was no transfer of power there and, at the time of writing, pop star-turned-political opponent Bobi Wine was still under house arrest in Kampala. Meanwhile in Ethiopia, civil war continues to rage on.
The highlight of my locked-down weekend was to binge-watch Lupin on Netflix. The excellent and charismatic Omar Sy is clearly the main reason behind Lupin’s surprise worldwide success. Lupin, the first French series to crack Netflix’s US top 10, has been watched by 70 million households, surpassing other recent hits Bridgerton and The Queen’s Gambit to become the streamer’s top global program.
But is it really a surprise? The answer is in the signs. Sy is of Senegalese descent. The coolest film school in the world just opened its doors in Dakar. Senegalese-born Chef Mory Sacko just won a Michelin star. And Dakar Fashion Week won best overall by choosing a striking baobab forest as a setting. The truth is this: there is a Senegalese takeover underway, and it’s all been orchestrated by Bill Gates.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about the Secret Senegalese Supremacy (SSS), but also the crash-landing of Loon’s balloons; classical music in the Congo; Naomi Campbell sparking a Twitter feud in Kenya; a major deal in African football; Omo Ghetto breaking The Wedding Party’s box office records in Nigeria; and the vibrancy of Africa’s comic book sector.
Please do be in virtual touch and send your comments, feedback, corrections, and simple plain hellos to marie@restless.global or find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter @marieloramungai.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Google’s Loon balloons have burst (pun © CNN). Less than a year after launching its first commercial service in Kenya in partnership with Telkom, the global company has announced that it would discontinue its pilot operation in March after realizing that its business model was unsustainable - aka the service was too expensive for the local market. Well, that seems hardly surprising, considering that even basic, last-century 3G technology is currently too expensive for the majority of African consumers. Still, it is disappointing. In a smart CSR move, Loon pledged $10 million to support nonprofits and businesses focused on connectivity, internet, entrepreneurship and education in Kenya as it exits.
Still in Kenya, Safaricom has announced that it was suspending the deployment of its Huawei-powered 5G network, despite successful testing and previously communicating about an impending launch. CEO Peter Ndegwa said the company would focus on converting millions of existing 2G and 3G customers to 4G service instead. There’s a bit of a mystery going on there, and if more information emerges I’ll be sure to bring it to you.
EDUCATION
As the Africa Season 2020 painfully hops along in France after being stuck for months in the Covid uncertainty vortex, several French-led initiatives to develop Africa’s creative sector are coming to fruition. In Senegal, French-Malian award-winning director Ladj Ly (of Les Miserables fame) has opened the Dakar outpost of his Kourtrajmé film school. The school, which is expected to bring a major boost to the cinema industry not only Senegal but in the entire francophone West African region, is partially financed by the French Development Agency (AFD). In Nigeria, 4 French companies (Teach on Mars, SUMMVIEW, WebForce3 and LAFAAC) have partnered with the Edo State government to launch a creative entrepreneurship and audiovisual e-learning platform. And in DRC, the soprano singer Isabelle Kabatu has launched her efforts to open an opera singing training center in Kinshasa with the support of Belgium’s Fondation Roi Baudoin. If the idea of classical music in the heart of the Congo seems innocuous to you, check out the excellent documentary Kinshasa Symphony which tells the story of Orchestre Symphoniste Kimbanguiste, and of the group of passionate amateurs who started it against all odds 20 years ago.
LITERATURE
For literature lovers (or Hollywood types in search of African IP to snatch up), here’s a yummy list of 50 notable African books of 2020. So much to read, so little time.
VISUAL ARTS
One of the continent’s most high-profile art events, Art X Lagos, took place in December, after HUSTLE & FLOW had wrapped for the year. Like any other gathering these days, this 5th edition of Art X Lagos took place online, and managed to attract a vast international audience from 101 countries to interact with 200 artworks from galleries across Africa and the diaspora, and engage in discussions on the theme ‘Present States; Shared Futures’. In response to the #EndSARS protests which rocked Nigeria in October last year, ART X Lagos also launched a support initiative for 100 photographers who worked at the frontlines and a selection of their works were shown as part of the fair’s special project, New Nigeria Studios.
Meanwhile, another flagship event of the African contemporary art space, the 1-54 art fair, just wrapped its first edition hosted for the first time and in-person at the Christie's Paris HQ. Twenty international exhibitors were also featured online at Christies.com. The fair was initially supposed to take place like it normally does in Marrakesh, but had to relocate due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
In Accra, the Noldor Artist Residency has opened its doors as Ghana’s first independent residency program for emerging artists. Founded in 2020 by contemporary African art specialist and philanthropist Joseph Awuah-Darko, the Residency will invite one emerging African artist each autumn to work in a dedicated studio space. Ghana has produced some of today’s hottest contemporary African artists, so it will be worth keeping an eye on the new talents coming out of this initiative.
Finally, the New Yorker and the New York Times have great profiles of Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui and Kenyan satirical painter Michael Soi, respectively. Both are established artists in their own genres, but only one of them portrays scenes of African and Chinese characters engaged in various types of debauchery.
HERITAGE
To put on your travel list for one day in the distant future: Renowned Ghanaian-British Architect David Adjaye has been tapped to design the new Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA) in Benin City, Nigeria. The Museum will house the returns of treasured bronze sculptures and other artifacts taken away from the Kingdom by the British government during its 1897 attack. According to Adjaye, a key part of the five-year-long project will be a $4 million-sponsored excavation of the site, from where fossils and discoveries would form the many artifacts to be housed by the Museum. EMOWAA will be situated beside the present palace of the Oba of Benin kingdom, primarily to help locals connect to their culture and history, even as it serves as a global historical monument.
HOSPITALITY
The tourism industry has been one of the hardest hit by the prolonged Covid crisis. In Kenya, which normally welcomes some 2 million foreign travelers annually, visitor numbers were down by 72% in 2020. Clearly, the government needed to take action, and it did so by appointing British supermodel and long-time friend of Kenya Naomi Campbell as the country’s tourism ambassador. The news did not go down too well locally, with many Kenyans complaining on Twitter about the choice of a foreigner to represent the country instead of local Hollywood star Lupita Nyong'o, for example. Tourism minister Najib Balala replied that Lupita has been “inaccessible for the past 5 years”, prompting Lupita to slap back with, basically, “LOL Nice Try but Nope”.
The newly-incorporated Kasada Hospitality Fund LP has gone bargain hunting and acquired a portfolio of eight fully operational Pullman, Novotel or Ibis hotels across three countries (Ivory Coast, Senegal and Cameroon) from AccorInvest, in what is billed as one of the largest cross-border hospitality M&A transactions in Africa. Kasada says the transaction is a reflection of its belief in the region’s “prospects for its post-Covid-19 recovery”.
GASTRONOMY
Congratulations to Senegal-born Mory Sacko who received his first Michelin star for his afro-japanese restaurant MoSuke. Sacko also won the best Young Chef prize for 2021. Sacko is part of a new generation of Paris-based African chefs, alongside Chef Anto and a few others, who are reinventing African gastronomy in the French capital.
FASHION
Dakar Fashion Week took place in December but it’s never too late to look at these pictures: in response to the pandemic, the organizers decided to move the event outdoors to a baobab forest. The result was majestic.
Launched in 2005 by the German foundation Aid by Trade with the support of German public partners (GIZ), NGOs and companies, the Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) project aims to integrate sustainable African cotton into the global textile industry. The initiative trains participating farmers to grow cotton in a more environmentally friendly and resource-efficient way. Last week, the Swiss subsidiary of the German distribution company Lidl announced the arrival in its shops of clothing made from CmiA cotton.
SPORTS BUSINESS
In what is probably the deal of the week, Egyptian conglomerate Mansour Group, valued at $7.5 billion in 2018, has invested $120 million to take control of Ghana’s Right To Dream academy. Founded in 1999 with a focus on both education and football by a former Manchester United scout, Right To Dream has since produced 20 Ghana internationals and bought Danish top-flight side FC Nordsjaelland in 2015. Mansour Group invested through a new entity called ManSports, and has plans to establish a Right To Dream academy in Egypt in addition to expanding existing activities in Ghana and Denmark. The move is one example of a new trend in global sports business: the influx of institutional capital. As leagues and franchises struggle to survive the pandemic, a flurry of new special purpose vehicles and private equity groups have been scrambling to take advantage of the situation to get their foot in the door of valuable properties. Indeed, despite the current challenging situation, the value of broadcast rights and the popular appeal of individual franchises remain on an upward trajectory.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, French club Olympique de Marseille has opened its first OM School at the Sports Institute of the University of Port Harcourt. Olympique de Marseille already runs two similar schools in Tunis and Algiers.
BROADCAST
In broadcast news this week, Multichoice’s Nigerian Idol is coming back for a 6th season in 2021 after a 5 year break. And still in Nigeria, two new TV stations have launched since the beginning of the year: TEEN Africa TV (TATV) founded by well-known filmmaker Charles Novia to focus on the underserved 13 to 19 year-old audience, and News Central TV, which will cover politics, nature, sports, eco-diversity, lifestyle, business, and sports.
Is it TV, is it VOD? Who knows anymore. Canal+ and Showmax have announced their second co-production after the South African Blood Psalms, and this time it takes place in Kenya: Crime & Justice, a gritty police procedural, will be the first original Kenyan show for both partners, who managed to make a move in the East African country before Netflix.
VOD
Our friends at Digital TV Research have released a new Africa OTT forecast report, predicting that revenue from OTT platforms in Africa will more than quadruple in the next 5 years to reach $1.7 billion by 2026. Market leader Netflix, which accounted for 57% of Africa’s SVoD subscriptions in 2020 with almost two million subscribers (and who, in case you missed it, appointed Zimbabwean Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa to its board last December), is expected to attract 6.3 million subs by 2026. Despite not launching in Africa until 2022, Disney+ is predicted to sign up 3.1 million subscribers by 2026, while 3rd-place contender and only local player Showmax, is forecast to reach two million by 2026. The race is about to start heating up, which is great news for African content creators.
Meanwhile, in this brave new digital world we are living in, Showmax has teamed up with MTN Nigeria to launch a special data deal for mobile subscribers; French TV streaming startup Molotov is expanding its service to 7 African countries; Kenya’s Media Pros Africa and Africa Digital Media Studios have partnered to bring African content to Vumicentral.com; and mobile company Mondia has introduced its entertainment platform Monsooq to the Nigerian market after launching in South Africa last November.
FILM
Putting an end to the 2020 curse on the Nigerian box office, Funke Akindele’s massive blockbuster Omo Ghetto (The Saga), has been on an incredible ride since its release in December and is on its way to break the records held by both Wedding Party movies to become the highest grossing Nigerian film of all time. After racking up more than a million dollars in a few weeks (not a small feat after the most recent Naira devaluation), the film is now getting an unprecedented release in Dubai, a first for a Nigerian movie. For cinema exhibitors, Omo Ghetto’s success illustrates the resilience of the Nigerian cinema sector, despite an increasingly gloomy global outlook for the theater business.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Nigerian diaspora talents continue to shine in Hollywood, with several high profile projects in the works: Disney+ is developing Yvonne Orji’s comedy First Gen, which is produced by David Oyelowo and Oprah Winfrey; Tessa Thompson has come on board to produce the TV adaptation of Nigerian-American sci fi writer Nnedi Okrafor's Who Fears Death for HBO Max; and Cynthia Erivo is set to star in and produce a film about an enslaved Yoruba girl who was presented to the Queen of England as a gift in 1850 for BBC Film.
PODCAST
In the last edition of HUSTLE & FLOW I talked about Africa’s arrival in the True Crime podcast game, and it is a given that other genres will follow. Earlier this month, the BBC World Service launched a competition to discover new podcast talents in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The winners will be matched with a BBC Production team and will receive the full backing of the BBC World Service to turn their idea into a BBC World Service podcast.
Not exactly a podcast but still in the audio content format, a new audiobooks app called Afrikan Echoes is due to launch in March. The app will feature up to 50 original and unpublished African works that have been translated into multiple African languages, including Yoruba, Amharic and Swahili. African storytellers from across the continent will be able to pitch their stories to Afrikan Echoes by sending voice notes in their native language. These pitches will be evaluated by Afrikan Echoes’ creative team before being recorded in their studio.
SOCIAL MEDIA
YouTube has released the full list of Africa's 20 most creative YouTube content creators for the #YouTubeBlackVoices Creator Class of 2021, which includes 8 creators from both South Africa and Nigeria and 4 from Kenya. All of them will receive mentoring and funding as part of YouTube's campaign to spotlight Black voices. YouTube anticipates to fund over 500 Black content creators from across the world over the coming years. Social Media is becoming an increasingly valid avenue for African content creators to make money, with the pandemic only accelerating this trend. In Nigeria, the biggest YouTube earner is comedian Mark Angel who - allegedly - makes a whopping $326,800 a month from his 1.4 million daily views.
COMIC BOOKS
The small but vibrant African comics sector is the focus of two recent articles in The Economist and Forbes. While The Economist credits the pandemic for nudging African comic book artists and buyers towards digital platforms which provide easier access to fans and better margins to creators, Forbes points to the massive success of Black Panther as a catalyst for interest in Afrofuturism. In December, Kugali, a company co-founded in 2017 by two Nigerians and a Ugandan, made headlines when it announced a landmark deal with Disney to make Iwájú (The Future), a sci-fi series imbued with Yoruba culture. Similar enthusiasm can be found in Francophone Africa, as Le Monde reports, despite distribution, promotion and financing challenges. There, the most popular property is without a doubt the Aya de Yopougon series, created by the French-Ivorian Marguerite Abouet, which has sold 710,000 copies and was adapted into film in 2012.
GAMING
Esport may just be in its infancy stage in Africa, but it doesn’t mean that the continent’s best players don’t have the ambition to take their spot in this fast-growing, $1 billion a year global market. In 2020, the 18-year-old South African Thabo "Yvng Savage" Moloi made history by becoming the first-ever player from Africa to be sponsored by Red Bull. Can Kenya be next? CNN profiles two of the country’s most-promising gamers: Sylvia "Queen Arrow" Gathoni and Brian "Beast" Diang'a. Judging by their profile pictures, they definitely look the part.
HUSTLE & FLOW #30: Nigerian players’ NBA draft record, Netflix & Realness invest in TV writers, African true crime podcasts take off, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
As we all start (or attempt?) to slow down in preparation for a well-deserved holiday break, you will find here my last newsletter of the year. I will return somewhat rested in January.
I started HUSTLE & FLOW in February BC to share the vibrancy, depth and scope of the African entertainment space, dispel myths about the creative industries (you get it now - it’s a business, not a charity) and galvanize investors’ interest in the sector.
Then Covid happened and HUSTLE & FLOW became the place to track and analyze the enormous changes that the sector was suddenly forced to grapple with: the temporary collapse of the event and live performance industry; the explosion of the consumption of digital media and the new urgency to develop affordable high-speed mobile and internet infrastructure; the boom in fintech, logistics, and e-commerce to better serve new contingents of local consumers; the growing appeal of African content globally, for which we now finally have some data thanks to the likes of Netflix, Apple Music, or Spotify; the reinvention of African fashion as a global leader in sustainability; and the confirmation, despite the long absence of live games from our screens, that the undying passion of the continent for sports and especially football is very much under exploited. Adding to this powerful 2020 momentum, the Black Lives Matter movement also positively transformed the way the world sees Black talent and Black voices, leading to more opportunities for Black creatives worldwide.
Through all this, it’s been extremely motivating to receive your many notes of encouragement and witness the growth of this newsletter. But it’s also been, behind the scenes, an enormous amount of work. Although writing HUSTLE & FLOW could easily be a full time job, I’ve had to fit it in my spare time (aka weekends) while I continue to service my consulting clients. Indeed, most of my time is spent advising companies and organizations on the African creative industries and how to invest in them. I also develop, write and executive produce content and especially TV shows, either for myself or for clients.
If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I have just started working on a groundbreaking study for UNESCO on the film and audiovisual sector in Africa’s 54 countries - the first such study to focus on the entire continent and, perhaps even more importantly, the first that will be made public when it is completed in June 2021. So yes, my short break from writing HUSTLE & FLOW will be filled with… more writing.
With that said, this week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about Nigerian players breaking all records at this year’s NBA Draft, the launch of Netflix and Realness Institute’s very welcome Episodic Content Development Lab, Africa’s finally getting on the true crime podcast trend, and my personal connection to one of these stories. But you’ll also read about 5G in Togo, a new training program for museum professionals, Davido’s political awakening, new TV stations in Zimbabwe, the cancellation of Queen Sono, Sudan’s first Oscar submission, Nigeria’s first animated feature film, and the longevity of my very own XYZ Show.
Subscribe and catch up on previous editions at www.restless.global/hustleflow. I remain available during the period so don’t hesitate to reach out as usual via email at marie@restless.global or on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @marieloramungai. My wish for 2021 is to soon be able to connect or reconnect with you all in person.
Happy Holidays to all,
Marie
MOBILE
Togo becomes the first West-African country and third African state to deploy 5G technology, with the launch of Togocom’s commercial 5G network in Lome in partnership with Nokia. As stated in its National Development Plan, the small country of 7.9 million has the ambition to become a regional hub for digitalization and technology, a smart strategy similar to the one currently pursued with great results by another small country, Rwanda.
Meanwhile across the continent, as the war in Tigray continues to rage on, reaching the beautiful cities of Axum and Asmara, it seems that the Ethiopian government’s plans to privatize its telecoms sector are still going forward. Difficult to imagine a more awkward, confusing, and even unethical context for wannabe investors. The Africa Report has a good explainer here.
LITERATURE
Ten Cities, a project by the Goethe Institut published by Spector Books, is out. The book tells the story of club music and club cultures in ten urban centers across Africa and Europe - namely Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, and Lisbon - from 1960 to March 2020. “Bringing clubs to the fore as nocturnal laboratories for different ways of life, the book portrays the cities' music subcultures in twenty-one essays, playlists, and photo sequences - before COVID-19 impacted creative communities worldwide.” This is as cool and alternative as can be.
VISUAL ARTS
Leading contemporary art platform Artsy is running a virtual exhibition entitled African Art Galleries Now until December 13th. The event features galleries from 15 African countries and allows global audiences to discover and collect over 200 new artworks by 52 African artists. As part of the event, the platform is shedding a particular spotlight on 15 African artists on the rise, who, from Luanda to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Maputo or Lagos, have continued to create in these difficult times. If you are feeling generous, Angolan photographer Keyezua’s Never too Old to Cut the Banana when Erected 4 is on my personal Christmas list.
HERITAGE
The latest stolen artefact to make its way back to the continent is a 600-year-old Ife Terracotta, which was returned by the Netherlands to Nigeria last week. The artefact was reportedly stolen from Nigeria's South Western city of Ile-Ife and smuggled to the Netherlands via Ghana. The Ife Terracotta was seized at customs at Schipol airport where officials, suspecting that "the object might be illicitly imported", alerted the antiquity protection office.
One point of dispute in the lively debate over the return of stolen art to Africa has been whether African countries have the capacity to properly care for the precious items. France and Morocco are now addressing the issue by joining forces to launch a "Pan-African training program for museum and heritage professions", which will be led by Morocco’s National Museum Foundation with $360,000 in funding from the French Development Agency (AFD).
FASHION
Luxury e-commerce platform Farfetch has partnered with curated online store The Folklore to introduce 10 new designers from across Africa and the diaspora to its roster of brands. The aim of the partnership is to increase the number of Black-owned fashion labels available to buy on Farfetch. Launched in 2018 from New York City, The Folklore distributes exclusive pieces from African labels such as Orange Culture, Tokyo James, William Okpo, EDAS and Third Crown, all now also available to buy on Farfetch. The Folklore will be adding new brands to the luxury e-tailer’s platform each season, alongside commissioned photo content and fashion films from African designers.
MUSIC
Afrobeats prince Davido is known for his songs about love and lust, which have collectively amassed more than a billion streams. But in his just-released new LP A Better Time, he steps away from his usual escapism with Fem (“Shut Up”), a perky hit which became a protest song in September for young Nigerians demonstrating against police brutality and corruption. The New York Times interviews the 28-year-old star about his political awakening here.
SPORTS BUSINESS
The football world is mourning the death at age 42 of former Premier League player and Senegal World Cup star Papa Bouba Diop, reportedly of ALS. Diop, who was nicknamed “The Wardrobe” because of his imposing height (he was 1,95 meters / 6-foot-5) started his club career in Senegal before playing for teams in Switzerland, France, and England.
Still in football, Fifa has banned CAF president Ahmad Ahmad for five years for breaching various codes of ethics relating to duty of loyalty, offering and accepting gifts, abuse of position and misappropriation of funds. Ahmad’s sidelining leaves a clear path for South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe to win the CAF presidency next year.
Meanwhile, Nigerian talents shine at the NBA with a record eight players selected as part of the 2020 Draft class either directly or with at least one parent from the country. They include Precious Achiuwa (Miami Heat), Udoka Azubuike (Utah Jazz), Isaac Okoro (Cleveland Cavaliers), Onyeka Okongwu (Atlanta Hawks), Zeke Nnaji (Denver Nuggets), Desmond Bane (Boston Celtics), Daniel Oturu (Minnesota Timberwolves) and Jordan Nwora (Milwaukee Bucks). In total, there are more than 30 current and former NBA players with Nigerian roots. Possibly the most well-known Nigerian player is Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, who was drafted No. 1 overall in the 1984 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets, and whose influence greatly inspired subsequent generations of young Nigerian players to take up the sport. Nigeria’s potential in basketball (just as in everything else really) is certainly nothing new for the newly-minted Basketball Africa League, and it will be interesting to see how the organization sets out to exploit it in the years to come.
BROADCAST
I spoke about the rise of Senegalese TV series in previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW. For more on the topic, and to hear from some of the creators themselves (such as Jean-Luc Herbulot of Sakho and Mangane), listen to this RFI podcast (in French). One of the key drivers behind the growth of French-language African series has been the multiplication of funding sources in the Francophone West African region, with broadcasters such as Télé Futurs Médias in Senegal, RFI in Ivory Coast, and global operators like TV5 Monde or Canal+ Afrique now actively investing in this type of content.
Now Canal+ seems to be making similar moves in Rwanda through a new local initiative to develop and promote the country’s visual and audio industry. Canal+ already supports and promotes local events such as the Kigali Audio and Visual Forum and the Tour du Rwanda. With “Canal Plus Rwanda”, the Pay TV operator has announced that it would strive to enhance the quality of Rwandan arts including movies, sports, and music, and assist Rwandan content producers in reaching wider audiences across the African continent and the world.
A country that could really benefit from some emulation in its broadcast space is Zimbabwe, which has been saddled with the financially bankrupt ZBC TV as its only national TV station since the country’s independence in 1980. And the time may have finally come, as Zimbabwean authorities have announced the licensing of six new television channels, namely ZTN, NRTV, 3K TV, Kumba TV, Channel D and Ke Yona TV. The Broadcasting Authority has given the new stations 18 months to be operational and go on air or stand the risk of losing their licenses. However, as is often the case with the matter of broadcasting licenses, there are concerns that they may have been awarded to operators with strong political ties to the ruling party. Let’s see how they perform once they get on the air.
Across the world in Orlando, Florida, Afrotainment, the company behind the “polycultural” Black Comcast channel AFRO TV and 8 other Afro-centric TV stations, is opening up a 30,000 sf. Digital Television Studio to accommodate its daily productions. The multi-million dollar facility includes a 220 seat auditorium, 2 versatile TV studios with live audience, a 180-degree cyclorama (I don’t know what that is either), a music recording studio, 2 master control rooms, an event hall and other television production support rooms.
VOD
Netflix has partnered with film development organization Realness Institute to launch an Episodic Content Development Lab to train writers from South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria in TV writing. Submissions are currently open and six writers will be selected to work on projects that will be developed and commissioned by Netflix. The selected writers will be paid a stipend of $2,000 per month (yes to paying writers to write!) and expected to be available full time from June to September 2021. A much needed initiative that has been widely celebrated by the industry.
Just a few days later however came the surprising cancellation of the second season of the streamer’s first African original series Queen Sono, after it had initially been given the go-ahead in April. Production company Diprente cited difficulties in filming due to the pandemic, however film shoots have been up and running across the continent for a while, so it doesn’t quite sound like the whole story. Other reasons may include shifting strategic priorities, budget concerns, or even rising expectations in terms of quality standards.
Meanwhile in South Africa, the government has confirmed that it would go ahead and enforce a 30% local content requirement for streaming platforms operating in the country. Although the spirit of the new regulation may be valid (protecting and supporting the local production industry) its mechanics seem completely unworkable due to the sheer volume of content available on global platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple+. The European model, which involves first taxing the platforms on the revenue generated locally, and then imposing a certain level of investment in local productions based on that taxable revenue, should be a template for other regions to follow. This is a meaty topic that I haven’t had time to cover this year but will definitely be on the menu for 2021, so stay tuned.
FILM
After similar announcements in recent weeks from Ivory Coast (La Nuit des Rois), Kenya (The Letter) and Lesotho (This is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection), Sudan is entering the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film race for the first time with the selection of Amjad Abu Alala’s You Will Die at Twenty. Only the eighth film in the history of Sudanese cinema, the film was conceived and produced just as the Sudanese revolution was unfolding. It premiered in Venice earlier this year and went on to win over 20 awards at film festivals worldwide.
The Guardian has a lovely profile of legendary South African actress Mary Twala, who passed away last July just a few weeks before Beyoncé’s Black Is King, in which the 80-year-old played a shaman, came out. Twala also holds the lead role in This Is Not a Burial, which is still traveling the festival circuit in advance of its theatrical release.
Four feature films and one documentary were selected by the Berlinale World Cinema Fund to receive “ACP bonus” funding for a total amount of $297,000. The co-production projects are Pepe, the Imagination of the Third Cinema by Nelson Carlos de los Santos, Dominican Republic; Rising up at Night by Nelson Makengo, DRC; O ancoradouro do tempo by Sol de Carvalho, Mozambique; The killer who gave me back my life by Mama Keita, Guinea; and Augure by Baloji Tshiani, DRC.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
African diasporans making waves: Artist and engineer Akin Adebowale, who was born in Nigeria, and director Ousman Sahko, who hails from Sierra Leone, have launched Blacktag, a “global interactive platform that will empower Black creators by connecting them directly with brands and audiences seeking out alternative Black”. Blacktag, which has raised a $3.75 million seed round led by Connect Ventures, a newly formed investment partnership between talent agency CAA and VC firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), has already announced deals with Issa Rae, Common and Janelle Monae.
Award-winning filmmaker Caroline Kamya, whose 2010 film Imani put Uganda on the global cinema map, has launched NATIV, a new project that aims to help talented media professionals in Uganda access global clients. NATIV’s website doesn’t seem quite ready yet, but you can register to be kept abreast of any new development.
PODCAST
One of my guilty pleasures is to listen to true crime podcasts, and I have been eagerly waiting for the trend to reach Africa. Last week saw the launch of not one but two projects of considerable ambition. In 23419, producer Chioma Onyenwe takes us on a journey into some of Nigeria's biggest online fraud cases, starting with a spectacular $242 million Banco Noroeste Brazil heist from 1995. The second project cuts close to home as I used to know the main protagonist well. In Case Number Zero, Vincho Ndovu looks into the unsolved disappearance of journalist and blogger Bogonko Bosire, who hasn’t been heard of since 2013. Bosire was my colleague at AFP’s Nairobi office from 2006 to his dismissal a few years later for gross misconduct after he stole money from a former Somali warlord. A brilliant and controversial writer (many people called him a genius), Bosire was also an open alcoholic with bipolar tendencies who would often wake up battered and bloodied on a Nairobi street corner after a night spent offending his drinking buddies with his provocative statements. At the time he was impossible to ignore, but also impossible to help, and the mystery of what happened to him haunts me to this day.
ANIMATION
Lady Buckit & The Motley Mopsters, which is billed as Nigeria’s “first animated feature film”, will be released in theaters on December 11th. The marketing of the film is very light on story and the synopsis seems to bear no connection to the title or the poster of the film (marketing fail alert), but Lady Buckit is apparently set against the backdrop of the historic oil producing town of Oloibiri in Delta State, and focuses on a precocious, self absorbed little girl who finds herself in wildly unfamiliar territory. The film was reportedly made on a $1 million budget.
I’ll finish off this edition and this year with a personal note as I congratulate my team at Buni Media for reaching season 14 of The XYZ Show! The satirical puppet show which I co-created with cartoonist Godfrey “Gado” Mwampemwa back in 2009 is now one of the longest-running programs on Kenyan television. Three other Buni Media productions have also been nominated for the 2020 Kalasha Awards (Kenya’s Emmys): Ask Dr. Pamoja (Best TV Advert), From Here to Timbuktu (Best Animation), and Hiddo and Hirsi (Best Animation). Hongera sana Buni Media, tuko pamoja!
HUSTLE & FLOW #29: Google and Orange bring the promise of superfast internet; Ghana’s Wakanda City of Return; MultiChoice’s smart sports-betting investment, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
Our bruised and battered world breathed a collective sigh of relief when Joe Biden’s victory was announced a week ago. Yes of course, he is as old as the last generation of African leaders, but he might still have a good fight in him. After all, he is still the same man who made this powerful, impassioned speech against US support to the apartheid regime back in 1986.
In the same week came the news of a potential COVID vaccine with 90% efficiency, and just as I am writing these lines we’re hearing of another, potentially even more effective one. So there might, finally, maybe, be some light at the end of this very long, dark tunnel of gloom.
On the continent however, the ghosts of undemocratic elections, state repression, and ethnic conflict seem to be catching a second wind. Opposition voices are being arrested in Tanzania, locked in a vice-like grip in Côte d’Ivoire, actively fought on the ground and in the courts in Nigeria, or dragged into a full-on war as tensions in Ethiopia’s Tigray region escalate and engulf neighbor Eritrea.
None of this is new of course, as the complicated legacy of former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings, who passed away a few days ago, reminds us. But it’s 2020 and every bad news carries with it a specific “Oh My God What Next” kind of flavor.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about Google and Orange bringing the promise of superfast internet to East and West Africa; Ghana’s Wakanda City of Return; and MultiChoice’s smart investment in sports-betting. But you’ll also read about Jumia’s path towards profitability; Kenya’s literary dwarfism (not my term, I wouldn’t dare); the intriguing concept of music development banks; Lesotho’s first entry in the Best Foreign Film Oscar race; and the annus horribilis of the Nigerian cinema sector.
The next edition of HUSTLE & FLOW will be its 30th, a nice, round number to wrap this up for the year. I will take a break from newsletter writing in December, and will find you all again, hopefully refreshed, in January.
In the meantime, head over to www.restless.global/hustleflow to subscribe or check out the archives, and please stay in touch via email, DM, whatsapp, or else, as it is always a pleasure to hear from you.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
There’s some Star Trek-worthy news this week in internet infrastructure. After launching its Loon balloons in July, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is now banking on invisible light beams to provide high-speed internet to Africa’s rural and remote areas. The initiative, dubbed “Project Taara”, will allow for the high-speed transmission of up to 20 gigabits per second between Taara terminals mounted high up on existing towers or rooftops over distances of up to 20 kilometers. The planned pan-African roll-out will start, just like Loon, in Kenya, in partnership with Econet.
In the same week, French telco Orange launched Djoliba, a new terrestrial and undersea fibre-optic network in West Africa that will deliver high speed broadband at up to 100 Gbps and seamless connection to Orange’s services across Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. This is a big deal as previously telecommunications networks in the area were built independently within each country and stopped at national borders. Orange, which says it is investing $1.18 billion annually into the continent’s digital transformation, currently serves 120 million customers in 18 African countries. It has identified the Middle East and Africa as a key growth driver for the company as part of its five-year plan.
MOBILE
The war in Tigray has certainly tarnished Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Abiy Ahmed’s image as a reformer, however whether it will impact foreign companies’ appetite for the country’s 110 million-strong market is another story. Last week, the Ethiopian Communications Authority confirmed that two new service providers had been selected to receive the country’s first private operating licences, and that their names would be revealed by the end of this month. Suspense. As you may recall, 12 entities including MTN, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, Liquid Telecom, but also a consortium called Global Partnership for Ethiopia made up of Safaricom, Vodacom and Vodafone, had thrown their hats in the ring of this highly competitive process.
E-COMMERCE
Nothing like a good pandemic and global lockdown to boost a struggling e-commerce business. Over the last few weeks, investors had parked on Jumia, expecting some major growth this quarter. That did not happen. Jumia lost 20% of its value last week when the company reported a lower than expected revenue for Q3 2020 - an 18% fall year over year. However, things might be better than they seem as in fact Jumia has been on a journey to reduce its historically staggering losses. By evolving beyond selling only first-party products (products which Jumia sells directly to end customers) to become a “marketplace” for third-parties, Jumia has temporarily sacrificed higher revenue for better margins over the longer term. Also, after getting into fintech with Jumia Pay, Jumia is now betting on spinning off its logistics arm and opening it up to 3rd-party e-commerce companies across 11 countries in Africa. As Jumia already is one of the biggest players in the e-commerce logistics space across the continent, this seems like a no-brainer move to unlock revenue. The question really is not whether e-commerce will work in African in the future, but rather how long investors will be willing to fund losses before it does.
FASHION
When Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Accra became one of the countless victims of this pandemic, the automaker decided it still wanted to spotlight the work of local West African talent. It is doing it in this special Vogue photo series showcasing the new collections of five Accra-based designers (Larry Jafaru Mohammed, Steve French, Hassan Alfaziz Iddrisu, Atto Tetteh, and Chloe Asaam), all focused on innovating traditional Ghanaian textiles and implementing eco-friendly production methods. Yes, sustainability is the new black.
In Ethiopia, a $6.5 million fund has been set up as a partnership between the government, the UK, and Germany to save thousands of jobs in the country’s textile and garments industry threatened by the COVID-19 slowdown. Through the fund, Ethiopia’s textile factories can apply for wage subsidies and incentives to reward businesses that can adapt to respond to the pandemic.
LITERATURE
HUSTLE & FLOW favorite Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been voted "Winner of Winners", a once-off award in celebration of the Women's Prize’s 25th anniversary, for her iconic novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Adichie beat out previous winners Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, and Rose Tremain. The Women's Prize, formerly known as the Orange Prize, brought Half of a Yellow Sun into prominence back in 2007.
As Nigerian writers continue to assert their uber-dominance over English-language African fiction, Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola digs into the reasons behind her own country’s lack of literary clout in a masterfully written article. Nyabola links “Kenya’s literary dwarfism” to the “virulent anti-intellectualism” of Daniel arap Moi’s long-running regime, which was characterized until its end in 2002 by arbitrary arrests, detention, and the exile of scholars including Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Today Kenyan publishers still self-censor, foreign books are taxed like luxury items, self-help is the most popular genre, and fiction writers tend to “hide their observations behind heavy-handed moralizing in books that can be sold as assigned reading for high school students.” But recent releases such as Makena Maganjo’s debut novel South B’s Finest, Billy Kahora’s short story collection The Cape Cod Bicycle War, and Nairobi Noir, a collection of crime stories edited by Peter Kimani, might be finally threading a different path. I’ll leave the last word to Nyabola as I can’t do better than that: “Nairobi readers of contemporary fiction may be left still longing for a story about a Nairobian who has sex, smokes a blunt, or has a beer without their life unraveling into a cautionary tale. Regardless, these books are a declaration of intent.”
HOSPITALITY
In 2019, Ghana organized ‘the Year of Return’, drawing many members of the diaspora, including celebrities, to the country to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in America. The success of the event was such that it should be made a Harvard case study. Since then, Ghana has been making efforts to consolidate the gains made “Beyond the Year of Return”. Last week, the city of Cape Coast announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Africa Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) and two local companies to create an ultramodern city called the “Wakanda City of Return” (hope somebody checked they could use or license the name). The partners seek to create a place of pilgrimage for the people of African descent to learn about their history, culture, the civilization of Africa, and its role in the creation of the new world economy. As long as it doesn’t turn into a white elephant or a basket case, I’m here for it.
MUSIC
Warner Music has signed a new licensing deal with music streaming platform Audiomack for key African territories including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. Audiomack, which claims to have more than 16 million monthly active users, will also provide support for Warner Music’s A&R research activities across these territories. For Warner Music, this is just the latest in a series of African moves that includes recent investments in Nigerian label Chocolate City and music rights management company Africori. At the beginning of last year, Warner Music also became the second major music company to sign a direct licensing deal with Africa’s biggest music streaming service, Boomplay.
Meanwhile, as new lockdowns are being instituted in Europe and the US and performance venues continue to operate (if at all) at limited capacity worldwide, Shain Shapiro of the Center for Music Ecosystems is making the case for the creation of “music development banks”. The live performance industry may be in shambles, he writes, but people are also paradoxically consuming more music than ever before - on streaming platforms of course, but also through TV, films, or video games. In fact, in the United States, the value of recorded music increased by 5.6% in the first half of 2020, prompting a number of investment funds to bet on recurring heritage music rights. However, the ecosystem requires musicians to continue to create music and right now, many of them are struggling. Shapiro argues that the creation of a Music Development Bank could support and protect the sector during this difficult time by recognizing the future value of music and spreading the risk over time. The idea is intriguing and sounds very similar to the African Music Fund launched by Nigerian superstar Mr Eazi in July this year -- a model that the various DFIs that have pledged to support the African creative industries should investigate.
And finally, a win for the culture: the Grammys are finally changing the name of their “best world music” album category to “best global music” album, to avoid “connotations of colonialism”. Initially coined in the UK in 1987 to help market music from non-western artists, the term “world music” had since become highly criticized, including by three-time Best World Music Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo, for its patronizing undertones. The Grammys’ change follows the announcement last July that the Recording Academy’s “best urban contemporary” album would be renamed “best progressive R&B” album, as the term “urban” is increasingly seen as an inappropriate descriptor of Black music.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Way back in February BC (Before COVID), I wrote that Vivendi Sports was up to something in Africa. Since then, the pandemic has put a freeze over most of the group’s planned activities, but it’s always good to hear from Vivendi Sports’ dynamic CEO and former rugby pro Robins Tchale-Watchou, who was interviewed by Jeune Afrique last week. In just 2 years of operation, Vivendi Sports notably created the Tour de l'Espoir, a cycling competition reserved for under 23s, organized boxing tournaments, and launched ARES, the first African-European MMA league, with a first major competition that drew a crowd of 5,000 in Dakar last December. All these events take advantage of synergies within the group: the competitions are organized whenever possible around the CanalOlympia sites, so that they can be combined with concerts showcasing Universal Music artists, and benefit from special media coverage by Canal+ television channels. Great strategy, bad timing.
In football news, South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe has been nominated as a candidate for the leadership of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) as the race for the top post in African soccer gathers momentum. Motsepe’s candidacy has already won support from Botswana, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The two other candidates are embattled incumbent Ahmad Ahmad of Madagascar and the Ivorian Jacques Anouma, a former FIFA executive committee member.
After much debate and some likely vigorous haggling over price, Multichoice SuperSport has renewed its broadcasting agreement with the English Premier League until 2025. The broadcasting rights have been confirmed to extend across Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa) and cut across all languages and via all the available distribution platforms. This is coming just as South African regulator ICASA is about to publish a regulatory mandate requiring DStv to make the broadcast so-called "public interest sports" available free-to-air. Did SuperSport just pay big money for content it will be forced to broadcast for free? Apparently not, as the new regulation does not seem to concern international league matches but rather major competitions such as the Summer Olympic Games, the Paralympics, the (FIFA) World Cup, the (FIFA) Women's World Cup, the Africa Cup of Nations, the Rugby World Cup, the Cricket (ICC) World Cup, the T20 Cricket World Championships, the Netball World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the IAAF World Athletics Championships, the Super Rugby, the All Africa Games, the COSAFA Cup, the CAF Champions League, and the CAF Confederations Cup. If the draft regulation comes into law, SuperSport will be facing existential problems pretty soon.
BROADCAST
Mais jusqu’ici, tout va bien. Actually, things are better than good for Multichoice, whose just-released first-half earnings statement revealed that the South African Pay TV group had breached the 20 million subscriber mark across Africa for the first time, amounting to a 6% increase in active subscribers over the six months through September. These are strong results for the group which was spun out of Naspers in February last year amid concerns over its profitability. The group also announced that it planned to develop more local productions and share more content costs with new shareholder Canal+. The duo have already teamed up on Blood Psalms, a drama based on pre-colonial South African mythology, which is due to be broadcast on MultiChoice’s Showmax streaming service next year. Another highlight from the earnings statement is the news that MultiChoice had acquired a 20% stake in Nigerian sports-betting platform BetKing for $81 million, valuing the startup company at over $400 million, and giving Multichoice access to a booming sector which presents many synergies with its activities, and not only when it comes to sports content. Just imagine what online sports-betting technology could do when applied to a non-sports competition blessed with a rabid following such as Big Brother Naija. (Print money, that’s what it would do.)
VOD
Not a big surprise, but now we have some numbers to back it up: Netflix is the leading streaming platform in South Africa with a 35% market share, while Showmax is second with a 25% share, according to rating service JustWatch.
There continues to be lots of activity in the (crowded) South African VOD space. Staying with Showmax, the local streamer recently announced the launch of a free, ad-supported version of its service for the South African market. Has the time for a-VOD finally come in Africa? This remains to be seen but it’s definitely a worthwhile experiment on Showmax’s part which we will be observing closely.
A bit late to the party but not a contender to be dismissed nonetheless, new platform TelkomONE has inked an agreement with SABC which will give the streamer non-exclusive access to content from SABC1 and SABC2 TV channels, as well as sports and educational content, and audio content from 19 SABC radio stations. The novelty here is that SABC will be paid a carriage licence fee, plus a yet-to-be-determined share of revenues generated by TelkomONE from its content. The deal, inspired by the American US cable carriage model, is similar to what SABC has been pushing to get from Dtsv.
FILM
The glocal appeal of Nollywood films was confirmed in a big way this year thanks to the impressive success on Netflix of films such as Oloture or Citation (number 6 worldwide last week). Meanwhile, on the ground, Nigeria’s once-booming cinema sector was going through the Year from Hell. A few weeks ago, just as cinemas were finally reopening after an inexplicably long and somewhat absurd lockdown (considering the mild impact of the pandemic in Nigeria), the #EndSARS protests and the ensuing mayhem forced theaters to close again. Some locations, such as three state-of-the-art FilmHouse cinemas, were destroyed by looters. Variety estimates that after a string of record-setting years at the box office, the Nigerian industry will take a hit of up to $21 million in 2020, a 60%-70% drop from 2019. A long list of highly anticipated films, all backed up during the long months of closure, are now set to be released over the next few weeks and during the holiday period. Netflix will no doubt also have its pick of the many unreleased films which will struggle to find a spot in cinemas among the backlog. However, with the delayed or cancelled release of many big Hollywood titles, there is an unprecedented opportunity for the local film industry to step up and grab a wider market share - if nothing else comes in the way.
Kenya has selected multiple award-winning documentary The Letter as the country’s official entry for the Oscars’ best international film category, while Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection is Lesotho’s first ever entry in the competition. The nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards will be announced on February 9th, 2021, while the ceremony itself will take place on April 25th.
And finally, the African film community has been celebrating the nomination a couple weeks ago of one of its own, creative industries veteran Alex Moussa Sawadogo, as FESPACO’s new director. The dynamic and very qualified Sawadogo will be in charge of modernizing the iconic festival, which takes place every other year in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and has in recent years been marred with financial and organizational issues. Educated in Germany, Sawadogo also has the potential to expand the attractiveness of the festival beyond the French-speaking world. We certainly wish him well.
GAMING
The 2020 Fak’ugesi Arcade event, which is running virtually this month, is a good opportunity to get to know the people and studios at the forefront of African gaming. If this is your space, check out the ‘People of Play’ exhibition, which is showcasing 13 of the most well-known developers on the continent including Hugo Obi of Maliyo Games (Nigeria), Eyram Tawia of Leti Games (Ghana), Dawit Abrahim of Qene Games (Ethiopia). Also watch out for Africa Games Week and the Business of Gaming event which will take place virtually on December 3rd and 4th, 2020.
HUSTLE & FLOW #28: New books by literary legends, the death of an art patron, taboo-breaking Senegalese soap operas, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
Perhaps it is because there are only 2 months left until the end of this exhausting year, but the pace at which our world is tumbling forward seems to have reached fever pitch in the past two weeks.
Just a few hours after I sent the 27th edition of HUSTLE & FLOW paying tribute to the beauty of Nigeria’s peaceful #endSARS movement, the army laid down a nighttime trap on harmless protesters and shockingly executed several of them under the cover of darkness, in what is now referred to as the Lekki Toll Gate massacre. Initially stunned and traumatized, Nigeria’s youths have since picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and are now focusing their energies on organizing themselves for the country’s 2023 elections.
Talking about elections, some very messy ones have just happened in Tanzania, and will soon happen in Ivory Coast, in Guinea, and of course tomorrow in America -- all countries in which incumbent leaders might cheat, steal, or plainly just refuse to leave office because, it turns out, they can.
Meanwhile, just before Europe went back into lockdown courtesy of that dreaded second wave, people in France were getting beheaded in the street and in broad daylight by terrorists.
In the midst of all this mess, businesses, creators, and ideas continue somehow to survive and thrive across the continent. This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I talk about new books by literary legends Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong’o; the shocking death of art patron Sindika Dokolo (another tragedy); and the success of taboo-breaking Senegalese series. But you’ll also read about why data is where the money’s at; Christmas gifts ideas; a must-see-but-can’t-see exhibition of African textiles; Africa’s hottest architecture projects; Kenyan Heroes on Google; new music talent search competitions; the future of sports post-COVID; and the new South African Ugly Betty.
Don’t hesitate to share this newsletter with friends and colleagues who might be interested in the African Entertainment industry. If you are new to HUSTLE & FLOW, you can subscribe and catch up on previous editions at www.restless.global/hustleflow. And please continue as always to send me your comments, links, tips and corrections at marie@restless.global.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
If you are a regular HUSTLE & FLOW reader, you know I’ve been very bullish about Africa’s data center opportunity. If you have a couple hundred millions lying around, it truly is a no brainer - and Liquid Telecom is on it. With a fresh $307 million in the bank, the group, which already operates five data centers in South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda, is now expanding to five other countries, including Egypt and Nigeria. Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean founder of Liquid Telecom’s owner Econet, has announced that construction is already under way for the company’s new data center in Lagos, which is set to be the largest on the continent outside of South Africa.
MOBILE
Masiyiwa has been maneuvering his way into the Nigerian market for years, even setting up the country’s first GSM mobile network, Econet Wireless Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria) back in 2001 - an adventure that didn’t exactly end well. It is clear that he is still determined to crack Nigeria, one way or another.
Indeed, despite the sharp economic slowdown, the continued devaluation of the Naira, and the social and political chaos of the past few weeks, some companies continue to win big there. And MTN might be the biggest winner of them all, as it just announced a 13.9% revenue growth over the 3rd quarter which guarantees it to cross the N1 trillion ($2.6 billion) mark by year’s end -- all thanks to data. A strong validation, if one was ever needed, of Masiyiwa’s data center approach (if you can’t beat them, join them, and if you can't join them, make yourself indispensable to them).
E-COMMERCE
In other MTN news, the operator has announced the sale of its 18.9% stake in Jumia, for net proceeds of $142.31 million. This move is part of MTN’s ongoing efforts to streamline its portfolio and minimise debt by disposing of its non-core businesses. The e-commerce platform, which faced difficult times last year that brought its share price crashing to a low of $3 after a groundbreaking but controversial listing on the New York stock exchange, has since rallied and regained its unicorn status. In the last 10 days, Jumia’s shares have steadied between $16 – $19 and its market cap has reached as high as $1.5 billion. As I was writing a few months ago, the pandemic might have very well been Jumia’s saving grace.
FASHION
Today in Fashion news, here’s one exhibition I would have loved to see, hadn’t it been for Lockdown Season 2: Black Thread, a showcase of the textile traditions of West Africa curated by Marché Noir creator Amah Ayivi, has opened at Världskulturmuseet in Sweden. The exhibition presents century-old fabrics (with a focus on Kente from Ghana) side by side with contemporary outfits by Ayivi and Cameroonian star designer Imane Ayissi. I see a lot of exciting opportunities in the future for the revival of traditional, hand-crafted African textiles as the fashion industry continues its march towards sustainability.
LITERATURE
At 86-years-old, father-of-African-literature Wole Soyinka is more productive than you. The Nigerian playwright, poet, and Nobel prize winner has used his time in lockdown to write his third novel, the first in almost 50 years. The optimistically titled Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth, which his publisher calls “a narrative tour de force”, will be published in Nigeria before the end of the year and internationally in early 2021. As you may recall, a film adaptation of Soyinka’s iconic play Death and the King’s Horseman, is also currently under development at Netflix. You can put Soyinka on the (short) list of people who won 2020.
It looks like writing is good for life expectancy. I somehow (how could I??) forgot to mention the new book by another hyper-prolific African literary giant, 82-year-old Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Although he has been based in California for decades as a distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature at UC Irvine, Thiong’o’s work remains engaged with his homeland. His new book, The Perfect Nine, is a recounting of the creation myth of the Gikuyu people through a decidedly feminist and pan-African lens. Originally written in Gikuyu and published in Kenya in 2018, the novel was translated into English by Thiong’o and embodies his famous theory on “Decolonizing the Mind.” The beautiful cover was designed by the talented Monica Obaga, a friend and former team member at Buni.tv.
In other literature news, Booker Prize shortlisted author Maaza Mengiste has assembled a diverse array of Ethiopian writers for Addis Ababa Noir, an intriguing anthology of short stories, while in Paris Cameroonian novelist Djaïli Amadou Amal has made it to the second round of selections for the prestigious Goncourt prize with Les Impatientes (The Restless Ones).
VISUAL ARTS
The African art world is in mourning this week after the tragic, untimely death last Thursday of Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo in a diving accident in Dubai. Forty-eight-year-old Dokolo was perhaps best known to some as the husband of the controversial Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos. But in art circles, he had earned a serious reputation as a committed supporter of African art, growing a vast collection of more than 3,000 pieces and dedicating time and money to the restitution of the continent’s works from Europe. Through his foundation, Dokolo set up a team of researchers, dealers, and lawyers in 2013 to scour archives and investigate the international art market, looking for any potential stolen artworks. So far the team is reported to have located 17 pieces and has returned a dozen to their home countries, which is, by any stretch, a very commendable legacy for which Dokolo deserves to be honored and remembered.
This would make a great Christmas present (and I just ordered mine): Editions Textuel, in partnership with London-based publisher Thames & Hudson, have released Africa 21st century, a coffee table book celebrating 20 years of contemporary photography on the continent through more than 300 reproductions of works by 51 African artists.
And for those with slightly more disposable income, the Foundation for the Development of Africain Contemporary Culture (FDCCA) and the African Culture Fund (ACF) are currently running “Africa Unite Against Covid-19” an online charity auction to support artists from the continent. Seventy-three works donated by more than 30 leading African artists are available, with starting prices ranging from $698 to $35,000.
CULTURE
The National Museum of Kenya has partnered with Google Arts & Culture and Shujaa Stories to create Mashujaa Wetu, an impressive and even groundbreaking digital project that explores the history of 61 Kenyan heroes, representing each of the country’s 44 communities. The site was unveiled on Mashujaa Day, or Heroes’ Day in Kenya, and is part of the wider Kenyan Cultures project, a bottomless rabbit hole showcasing historical and modern aspects of the country’s rich cultures. Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform through which the public can view high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world. Earlier in its development, the project faced criticism about its western-centric approach. Clearly the internet giant is working to correct this and has now made Kenyan culture available to the entire world.
ARCHITECTURE
CNN has a pretty cool slideshow of Africa’s most anticipated architecture projects, that include the Niamey Cultural Center and Adjaye Associates’ Memorial des Martyrs in Niger; the monumental National Cathedral of Ghana, also by Adjaye Associates; Zaha Hadid’s Grand Theatre and the Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat; the New Redemption Hospital in Liberia and the Ellen DeGeneres Campus (sigh, yes) of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda, both designed by US nonprofit MASS Design Group; Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum and the Gouna Conference and Culture Centre in Egypt; and the Floating Music Hub in Cape Verde by Kunlé Adeyemi of Makoko floating school fame.
MUSIC
Two new Music talent search competitions were announced last week. First, MTN Nigeria has partnered with Berklee College of Music and Nigerian creative hub Afrinolly to produce its Y’ello Star reality show. Members of the Berklee community will serve as coaches and judges for the 16 semifinalists, with the winners offered the opportunity to record their debut single at Berklee’s campus in New York. The Mic: Africa is a music competition and docu-series independently produced by creative tech startup AMP Global Technologies and broadcast through various media and telco partner platforms across the continent. Fans have used the app to select 18 semi-finalists among young artists from Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Mauritius. The show will air in early December with a finale on January 3rd.
By tapping into young people’s hunger for fame and Africa’s seemingly bottomless reservoir of raw talent, such music-based competitions have been extremely popular across the continent in recent years. Local adaptations of global formats such as Idols, Project Fame, X-Factor, The Voice, or America’s Got Talent, but also mobile-based competitions such as Trace Music Star, have drawn massive viewership and generated substantive revenue through sponsorship or premium SMS voting.
SPORTS BUSINESS
New Frame is looking at the future of Sports in Africa in a post-COVID world. With competitive sports being largely dependent on revenues from match-day attendance fees, sponsorships, and declining broadcast license fees, sports federations and sports business entrepreneurs need to urgently start exploring other revenue streams as they wait for some kind of normalcy to return. As I have written in HUSTLE & FLOW in the past, opportunities exist to create more innovative content around local sports and exploit it over the variety of digital platforms available today (social media, global streaming platforms, mobile, exclusive club-owned platforms, etc).
One federation that has been very active in pushing new digital content out during the lockdown is the Basketball Africa League. ESPN has a very interesting article about how America’s relationship with its African NBA players has evolved over the years - from prejudice to curiosity to finally, respect, as BAL is forcing Americans to look at Africa through a different lens. Meanwhile, although basketball’s practice and audiences are growing on the continent, it remains a “luxury” and “forward-looking” sport most appreciated by the educated elites.
One advantage the NBA has by starting basically from scratch in Africa is that it can fully control the way the sport is structured and run. This is not the case for local football which is, let’s be honest, a hot mess. Last week, Confederation of African Football president Ahmad Ahmad was found to have breached various codes of ethics, which may destroy his chances for re-election come next March. And in Kenya, StarTimes’ recently signed 7-year deal to broadcast the national football league games may be compromised by bitter infighting between the defunct Kenya Premier League (KPL) and the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) over who, exactly, owns what rights. A rookie mistake on the part of StarTimes.
BROADCAST
Canal+ slow-but-steady takeover of MultiChoice continues, with the French group now owning 12% of its South African partner-rival. We’ll keep an eye on that. Meanwhile, Canal+ continues to experiment with new types of content, and is releasing tonight its first paranormal African series, Hantés (Haunted), written and directed by South African Gareth Crocker (Shadow).
Staying on the topic of TV series, Le Monde has a good article this week on the new wave of “made in Senegal” soap operas sweeping the country.The trend started with the broadcast of Maitresse d’un Homme Marié (Mistress of a Married Man), which broke all records on TV and on YouTube in January 2019 with its taboo-breaking themes of domestic violence, polygamy and depression. Another hit is Infideles, which talks about infidelity in relationships, in the family or towards religion, and competes in prime time against Maitresse. Despite the shows’ massive success, the economics of the local fiction market are still tight. According to the series producers, 2 seasons of 52 episodes cost between $133,000 and $177,000 to make, or approximately between $1,280 and $1,700 per episode. The revenue model involves first a TV broadcast where producers keep 60-70% of the advertising revenue with the rest going to the channel, then an exclusive VOD window (on Sonatel’s platform WIDO for example), and finally a free release on YouTube, where millions of viewers can bring some $27,000 over 6 months. But of course, this is only the beginning, and producers are already starting to dub their productions in French and English in order to target multiple channels across the region.
In Nigeria, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, which hasn’t been making friends in the industry lately, has fined Channels, AIT and Arise TV $9,000 each for "unprofessional conduct" and "using unverifiable footage" in their coverage of the #EndSARS Protests. The move promptly triggered outrage from the country's civil rights organizations who described it as a “blatant curb on freedom of expression and media independence”. A few days later, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, and 261 concerned Nigerians, civil society and media groups filed a lawsuit against the NBC and the Minister of Information and Culture, asking the court to “declare arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional, the fines imposed on the aforementioned media houses".
VOD
So what has Netflix been up to in the past couple of weeks? Making deals with telcos to make it easier for African consumers to pay by adding their subscriptions to their phone bills. So far Netflix has inked such partnerships with Vodacom and Telkom in South Africa, where a substantial number of users have post-paid accounts, while the streamer is no doubt looking at other types of mechanisms in Nigeria and beyond, where most mobile users are on a pre-paid model instead.
In South Africa, the SABC continues to fight for its survival, proposing a new regulation that would expand the definition of a TV licence to include streaming services such as Netflix, and hence bring the public broadcaster more revenue, while also finalizing plans to launch its own VOD platform in early 2021.
FILM
The Guardian sheds some light today on the emergence of a new kind of Nigerian cinema - the type that is finally finding its place in top film festivals around the world (although not necessarily at the top of the local box office). Films like The Ghost and the House of Truth, Eyimofe and For Maria, tackle serious topics such as gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration, and are currently available on the BFI Player as part of the Beyond Nollywood strand at Film Africa, which is running virtually until November 8.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Yo soy Betty, la fea, the hit Colombian telenovela which inspired the American Ugly Betty, is now getting a South African remake featuring the show’s first Black lead. UBettina Wethu is set to be released in April 2021 on SABC. African remakes of international fiction formats are still exceedingly rare (the only other one I have in mind is EbonyLife’s Desperate Housewives Nigeria), for two reasons: first, the format rights are prohibitive for the local markets and second, African viewers are not exactly waiting for this type of shows, as they’re quite happy with original creations that are more directly relevant to their own experiences. It will however be interesting to see the response to uBettina Wethu, as tastes constantly change and evolve.
If the busiest producer in Africa is Mo Abudu, the busiest African director award goes to Wanuri Kahiu, who has just boarded ANOTHER Hollywood project. The Kenyan filmmaker is now set to direct Paramount Player’s feature adaptation of bestselling author Angie Thomas’ second novel On The Come Up.
Another African director is making strides this week in Hollywood as South Africa-based Nigerian director Akin Omotoso has been tapped to direct Greek Freak, a Disney+ feature about NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was born in Greece to Nigerian parents and currently plays for the Milwaukee Bucks.
ANIMATION
Two more African-flavored Hollywood announcements this week, this time in Animation, with Matthew A. Cherry (Hair Love) set to direct Tut, an animated “afro-futuristic, coming-of-age story of the boy king Tutankhamun” for Sony Pictures Animation, while Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out) will lead the voice cast of Netflix’s Yasuke, a new anime in which Stanfield portrays the first African samurai of the same name.
GAMING
Finally, NETINFO, AfricanGameDev and Epic Games MegaGrants are launching Let's Build the African GameDev Community, a free 5-month support program for budding African game developers aged 18 to 30 to learn how to use Unreal Engine. Inscriptions take place here.
HUSTLE & FLOW #27: #EndSARS, Sports is Africa’s new oil, Canal+ buys into Multichoice, opportunities for African film and animation, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
I love a good revolution (as most French people do), and for the past 10 days the youths of Nigeria have served us with a particularly beautiful and inspiring one.
What started as spontaneous protests against the brutality of a particular section of the Nigerian police force called SARS, whose rogue officers have been guilty for many years of harassing, racketeering, raping and killing young people across the country, has turned into an unprecedented peaceful movement for reform which is likely to have long-lasting repercussions.
Across the country, young professionals who would normally have been too busy hustling to get involved with any kind of political wahala have had a lot of time to reflect in the past few months, courtesy of a particularly long lockdown. It seems that in the process they realized that they just had enough.
When foreigners say that Nigeria is disorganized, I tell them that they must be talking about the government, because Nigerians in the private sector and civil society are, in fact, extremely organized. What better illustration than these past few days, during which strangers and groups like the Feminist coalition have come together to raise funds for victims of police violence, deliver food and water to protesters, set up power outlets so that witnesses could continue to counter attempts at misinformation and manipulation, build crowdsourced tech platforms, all the while maintaining the pressure on Twitter where they got their very own dedicated emoji. Even celebrities are out there on the ground, Burna Boy mounting #ENDSARSNOW billboards all over Nigeria, Davido protesting in Abuja and Wizkid in London, Banky W leading street clean ups in Lekki, and countless Nollywood stars joining in as regular, masked citizens.
And in a shocking plot twist, 5-year-old Nigerian digital payment startup Paystack, founded by exactly the kind of young people that are the primary targets of SARS, was acquired by Stripe for a whopping $200 million. All in one week’s work.
It’s always pointless to attempt to compete against Nigeria’s flamboyance. But I will nevertheless still try to keep you interested. In this edition of HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about why Sports is Africa’s new oil; Canal+’s possible long-term plot to take over Multichoice; and why education companies should invest in Africa’s animation sector. But you’ll also read about Africanfuturism (and not Afrofuturism), West African portraiture, an Ethiopian gold crown, a fashion collection inspired by real female spies, Ivorian sports agoras, Kenyan content on Netflix, major new funding opportunities for film, and more.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, please make sure to do so at www.restless.global/hustleflow, where you’ll also find all previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW. And please continue to engage by email or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @marieloramungai.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
LITERATURE
This week we’ll start with literature for a change. Seven years after Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is finally releasing a new piece of fiction entitled Zikora, a short story about a Nigerian lawyer living in Washington, D.C. who has been abandoned by her successful partner after he learned that she was pregnant. Zikora will be available on October 27 as part of an Amazon Original series.
Talking about Americanah, it looks like the book’s long-awaited TV adaptation is no longer happening at HBO Max after a scheduling conflict led star Lupita Nyong’o to drop out of the project. It was a long-time passion project for Nyong'o, who optioned it years ago and tapped Danai Gurira to write, with Brad Pitt's Plan B co-producing and Chinonye Chukwu directing. It would seem surprising for such a star-studded, topical project to die such as prosaic death, so let’s hope it gets resurrected somewhere else.
Another exciting release this month is Brittle Paper’s 10-year anniversary free Africanfuturism anthology edited by Wole Talabi. Talabi is an author, a member of the African Speculative Fiction Society and the curator of a database of over 600 works of African speculative fiction. The word Africanfuturism was coined by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor, who rejects the most well-known term of Afrofuturism, to refer to science fiction rooted in the African world. Okorafor’s writing is featured in the anthology alongside works by TL Dilman Dila, Rafeeat Aliyu, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Mame Bougouma Diene, Mazi Nwonwu, and Derek Lubangakene.
VISUAL ARTS
Sotheby's 2020 online auction of African modern and contemporary art closed on October 9, with a piece by El Anatsui notably reaching $1.35 million. The sale also listed several paintings and sculptures by Nigeria’s Ben Enwonwu, including a previously unknown work entitled The Court of the Oba of Benin. Although that particular piece didn’t end up selling, many others did. Interest in Enwonwu's work has increased dramatically in the last two years after two of his portraits, Tutu and Christine, sold for more than $1 million each.
West African portraiture is emerging as a popular sub-genre of African contemporary art, and I must admit that I would love to have some of those on my walls. ARTSY has a lovely story about the ascent of young Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, whose striking paintings feature large-scale portraits of stylist Black figures. Quaicoe’s story involves an early childhood fascination for Ghana’s hand-painted movie posters, studies at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design, an online romance and subsequent marriage with an American lawyer, and a move to Portland. There, Quaicoe struggled for a while before his friend and fellow artist Amoako Boafo (if you follow HUSTLE & FLOW, you might recognize Boafo as the artist Dior Men collaborated with on the brand’s new collection) introduced him to Los Angeles gallery owner Bennett Roberts, and the rest is history.
HERITAGE
In the latest episode of the Looted African Artworks Saga, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has started talks with the Ethiopian embassy over returning looted treasures in its collections, including a gold crown and royal wedding dress, taken from the country more than 150 years ago. Ethiopians have campaigned for the return of the items since they were plundered after the 1868 capture of Maqdala in what was then Abyssinia.
And in France, the National Assembly voted to pass a bill returning 27 colonial-era artifacts from French museums to Benin and Senegal. The bill now needs to be confirmed in the Senate. If enacted, it would compel France to return 26 works looted from Benin’s royal palace of Abomey that are in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, and a sword that belonged to the west African military leader Omar Saidou Tall would return permanently to Senegal from France’s Musée de l’Armée. The sword is currently on loan to the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar.
PERFORMING ARTS
The performing arts have been one of the sectors hardest hit by the lockdown worldwide, and Africa was no exception. But confinement or not, dancers gotta dance, and two initiatives offer a window into what the experience has been like for them: Arts Fundi showcases two short films made in collaboration with the Cape Town City Ballet, while the Institut Francais is presenting Lettres du Continent, a long video performance led by choreographer Faustin Linyekula and producer Virginie Dupray which stitches together contributions from 21 dancers and collectives from all over Africa.
FASHION
Paris Fashion Week has officially drawn to a close and South Africa’s Thebe Magugu and Nigeria’s Kenneth Ize, the only two African designers on the schedule, did not disappoint. Kenneth Ize invited artist Maty Biayenda to live paint a mural as models milled around in his unisex clothes, while Magugu, the first African to win the prestigious LVMH prize in 2019, illustrated his intelligence agent-inspired collection with a 7-minute film inspired by a series of interviews he conducted with female ex-spies who worked for and against South Africa's Old Regime.
It’s not everyday that we have news from eSwatini (the country formerly known as Swaziland) in HUSTLE & FLOW, so it is worth mentioning Khokho Collection, an accessories line putting a luxe spin on the classic woven basket bag. The brand is a collaboration between New York-based designer Sapna Shah, Central Saint Martins alumna Philippa Thorne, and master weaver Zinhle Vilakati. The bags are fully produced in eSwatini using traditional swazi weaving techniques.
MUSIC
MTV has announced its Europe Music Awards nominees for Best African Act, and South African artists are dominating the list including, of course, Jerusalema hit maker, Master KG. However the category has been won by Nigerian artists 4 years in a row, and 2019 winner Burna Boy is nominated again this year, so the competition will be tough. The competition will be broadcast live on November 8 on MTV and MTV Base.
SPORTS BUSINESS
The sports industry is, without a doubt, one of Africa’s most exciting untapped business opportunities. Aubrey Hruby and Jake Bright explain why in The Africa Report. As more and more international leagues and clubs, such as the NBA, Arsenal or Paris Saint-Germain (both of whom have a deal with Rwanda), as well as global companies like Nike, Redbull or StarTimes, start getting the drift, is it likely that we will see an explosion of Africa’s markets for both competitive sports (with talent scouting and development playing a big part) and sports-related health and leisure activities. Already, strong communities exist across the continent that are passionate about cycling, biking, running and even crossfit or petanque. As just one example, the number of registered participants to the Lagos City Marathon grew from 50,000 in 2016 to 150,000 this year.
Sports news and streaming company Sports Network Africa is hoping to tap into sports fans’ hunger for anything related to their passion by bringing them content that is currently not broadly accessible. On its first weekend of operations, the site streamed the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon, the South African StrongMan contest, and the South African Squash Nationals.
Opportunities are also plentiful in infrastructure. Just a few days ago, the French Treasury granted a loan to the Ivorian government to finance the construction by WinWin Afrique and ALAMO of 10 new social and sports facilities in Cote d’Ivoire, after the successful inauguration in December 2019 of a first AGORA center in Abidjan.
And of course the scramble over football rights continues, with the new frontiers being the free-to-air broadcast of international premier properties, and the development of new audiences for and through the broadcast of African leagues games. Multichoice’s Supersport has acquired the rights to the Ethiopian Premier League, just as in South Africa the regulator is reviewing the definition of ‘public interest’ to force the Pay TV operator to make more free-to-air sports available via its satellite platform. Meanwhile the German Bundesliga has announced that it would be distributing selected free-to-air TV rights in Africa for the next three seasons. Yes, it’s a challenge to keep up.
BROADCAST
The big news in Broadcast this past week has been the revelation that Canal+ Group had bought its way to a 6.5% ownership stake in Multichoice for $165 million. Canal+ had been quietly buying shares in the publicly-traded Pay TV operator since April, but when Canal+’s stake got above 5%, Multichoice became required by law to inform their shareholders as well as the Takeover Regulation Panel. The French company is now the fourth-largest shareholder at Multichoice. Currently, Canal+ has 4.3 million African subscribers across 25 countries, compared to Multichoice’s 19 million. Over the last decade, Canal+’s parent company Vivendi has built a reputation for engaging in hostile takeovers. Under South African law, no foreign entity can own more than 20% of voting rights at a broadcasting company... But for how long? In what seems like more than a simple coincidence, the South African government is now reportedly considering allowing foreign ownership to 49% or even 100% if the investors are from other African countries. Vivendi/Canal+ buying Multichoice would make sense strategically, even if it would come with substantial challenges.
One of these challenges is the current attempts by South African and Nigerian legislators to dismantle Multichoice’s over-dominant position in both markets. One issue I’ve talked about at length is the one of sports rights exclusivity. But now a new proposal put forward by the South African government also wants to force Multichoice to pay retransmission fees for "must-carry" content and channels from public broadcaster SABC. Indeed, the financially bankrupt SABC has been complaining that Pay TV broadcasters benefit from its content for free due to the must-carry rules that were designed to fulfil the universal access regulations. This type of carriage fee is the norm in the US market and could be a lifesaver for the SABC.
VOD
The VOD sector is not being spared by the intense industry regulations overhaul ongoing in the South African broadcast industry. The government is proposing a new regulatory framework that would establish two types of licenses - Individual and Class - depending on each online video operator’s annual turnover. According to the government’s white paper, content streamers such as Netflix would require a license, while video sharing platforms like YouTube might not, although they would still face stringent regulations. Besides Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple+ and co, the new rules are also expected to apply to upcoming local services such as e.tv’s Openview Plus launching this month, and TelkomONE, set to debut on November 30. No word so far on potential local content quotas for streamers. The issue is currently a hot topic in other markets such as France, for example, where SVOD platforms will soon be required to spend 25% of their in-country turnover on European productions, with a large (and as yet undetermined) proportion of that going toward French productions in particular.
In any case, these new regulations, if they are confirmed, will not slow Netflix’s progress on the continent (or elsewhere). The latest African production to get everyone talking is Òlòturé, a hard-hitting film on human trafficking in Nigeria directed by Kenneth Gyang and executive produced by the ubiquitous Mo Abudu. Soon after its release earlier this month, the film became the 8th most watched movie on Netflix in the world, reaching the top 10 in many countries such as Switzerland, Brazil, Morocco, Ukraine, Qatar, South Africa and of course Nigeria.
But it cannot always only be about Nigeria, and other countries, such as Kenya, are also yearning for this kind of exposure and recognition. Writing in The Guardian, Nairobi-based filmmaker Fred Onyango calles Netflix “a lifeline for African filmmakers”, just as three Kenyan films - Sincerely Daisy, Disconnect, and Poacher - make their debut on the platform.
FILM
Staying in Kenya: as I have mentioned in previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW, 2020 has been a good year (I admit I didn’t think I would have the opportunity to string these words together) for Kenyan documentaries. Multiple award-winning Softie, about activist and photojournalist Boniface Mwangi, has now been qualified for consideration for the Oscars shortlist in 2021. The film premiered in Kenyan theaters last week. Meanwhile, Le Monde has a profile of Peter Murimi, the director of I am Samuel, the other big Kenyan documentary of the year which tells the story of a gay couple struggling to gain acceptance. I am Samuel screened at the recently concluded London Film Festival. I would be remiss not to mention that the two films were both produced by Toni Kamau, who is probably the hottest African documentary producer right now and is the youngest female African documentary producer member of the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Across the border, UNESCO and the European Union have partnered with the Government of Uganda to launch a joint year-long project to support the development of the film sector in the country. The initiative aims to boost local content development and professionalization by creating tax incentive measures and strengthening the capacity of professional film associations.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Two new funding opportunities are now available to African content creators. YouTube has reached out to content creators and artists in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to ask them to tap into the available grants from its $100 million dollars Black Voices Fund before applications close this Wednesday. The company is reportedly looking at expanding the list of applicable countries further in the future. The fund, which was launched last June to support Black creators and help them promote their work on the YouTube platform, has also just unveiled its first slate of shows from the US.
Meanwhile, applications are also open for The Write Project Film Fund, a new initiative by PSP Media Capital and its Managing Director Brian Wu. Wu, who has reportedly been successful with a similar model in China, has tapped angel investors from California, Asia, and South Africa to raise the fund. The Write Project aims to crowd source story ideas, scripts, or fully packaged projects from across the continent, eventually financing and producing up to 6 features, 4 TV series pilots, and 15 short films in 2021 (there is no current target on the number of documentaries). The Write Project is targeting an international sales business model to platforms such as Netflix and Amazon, and plans to invest between $2.5 and $6 million per feature film, an amount multiple times larger than typical film production budgets on the continent. The initiative is interesting in that it goes against conventional thinking about film development and production, such as the necessity to have a correlation between film budgets and local revenue potential, or for filmmakers to painstakingly build credibility and trust over many years before being considered for any kind of private investment. It will certainly be fascinating to see the results of this experiment. Applications are currently open and close on October 31 for South Africa and December 15 for the rest of Africa. Keep in mind that the platform charges application fees (which in my view they should get rid of asap).
CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
French film production and distribution company Pathé has announced the launch of Pathé BC Afrique, a new subsidiary in charge of distributing French and American films in 17 countries in North and French-speaking Africa, starting with Tunisia and Morocco. In 2016, Pathé and its exhibition partner Gaumont had announced their plans to open a joint network of 47 cinema screens across Africa, and they soon after inaugurated a multiplex in Tunis. However in 2018, Pathé acquired Gaumont’s existing Africa cinema network and it seems that it is now going to continue on this journey alone. With no mention of any plans to invest in local content, Pathé’s approach (or at least its communication) appears anachronistic at a time where other players such as Vivendi/CanalOlympia or Netflix have fully realized that localized content strategies were a must-have and not a nice-to-have.
ANIMATION
After Forbes declared in June that Africa is “animation’s next global hotspot”, it’s BBC’s turn to affirm that “Africa’s animation scene is booming”. Besides the usual mentions of bright star Ridwan Moshood of Garbage Boy and Trash Can fame, the good work of Nick Wilson and the African Animation Network, and Ng’endo Mukii’s iconic Yellow Fever, the article does a good job at laying down the challenge of growing new talents in an environment with a dearth of formal training institutions. Currently, most African animators are self-taught. However, for Africa’s budding animation sector to turn into a real industry capable of generating revenue by servicing global studios (as per the India model) or through original content creation at a large scale, proper training infrastructure needs to be developed -- a major opportunity for private operators in the education field. International animation studios Toonz Media Group and Baboon Animation have announced plans to establish animation academies in Africa, while the African Animation Network hopes to inspire broadcasters to invest by launching its own TV network. In Tunisia, digital arts school Net-Info has trained 12,000 young people from North and Francophone Africa in the fields of animation, 3D imaging and gaming since its inception in 1999. Last week it announced it has become Epic Games’ new and only academic partner in Africa.
HUSTLE & FLOW #26: African creators win bigly, Orange launches $30 smartphone, Netflix and Canal+ experiment with mobile-only VOD, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
Good news is hard to come by these days so this one should be celebrated.
No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s COVID diagnosis (sorry, not sorry). Sudanese filmmaker hajooj kuka was released from jail, alongside the other 4 artists who were arrested with him. Another group of artists who were arrested later on are still being held however, so the African filmmaking community remains engaged.
On October 1st, we also celebrated Nigeria’s 60th birthday, with some of the world’s biggest brands joining in for the party: Nike gifted its 2020 Super Eagles Football kit to several diaspora influencers like the writer Luvvie or the musician Jidenna (the simple fact that a company like Nike has a Naija collection should leave no doubt on the importance of the Nigerian market); Apple Music launched its month-long Oshe Naija ("Thanks Nigeria" in Yoruba) campaign; and Netflix came through with the surprise release of the documentary Journey of an African Colony, The Making of Nigeria.
For a more poetic, less commercial take, British-Nigerian visual artist Asiko wowed the interwebs with his Nigerian Renaissance photographic project inspired By Delacroix’s 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People. The conceptual series brings forth a vision of Nigeria stepping out of the shadows of the past into a new dawn. Cheers to that.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, we’ll also celebrate African creators doing so much #winning in Fashion, Architecture, Visual Arts and Literature; Orange releasing a $30 smartphone; Nigerian cinemas’ reopening strong, and Netflix and Canal+iRoko experimenting with mobile-only sVOD, among other tidbits like a 5G revolution in slow-motion, Ethiopian mobile money, local football’s new sexiness, a Christmas music channel and South Africa’s first female-led animation studio.
If you missed a previous edition or haven’t subscribed yet, head over to www.restless.global/hustleflow. To get in touch and share your comments, questions, or corrections, email me at marie@restless.global, or connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @marieloramungai.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
To the delight of South African telecoms operators, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has agreed that they could keep using the temporary 4G and 5G emergency spectrum allocated to them during the lockdown until March of 2021. The South African regulator has also started receiving applications for licenses for its high-demand 3G/4G spectrum.
Thanks to the temporary spectrum, MTN and Vodacom were able to launch their 5G networks in South Africa ahead of schedule. However, the 5G revolution is still a long way off across the continent, where 5G connections will account for only 3% of the total mobile connections by 2025. When the technology does become mainstream, it will take 32 seconds to download a high-definition movie, as opposed to 22 minutes on a 4G network.
MOBILE
Orange has released the Sanzo touch, a $30 4G Android Go smartphone supported by Google, which the operator describes as “the most affordable device globally”. Orange will start commercializing the device this month with a bundled mobile data plan in Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast and Madagascar, before rolling it out to its other markets in the Middle East and Africa region. Orange hopes that this price point will be a game changer that will accelerate the pace of digital adoption in the region - which it might very well be. However, and in case you were wondering, the Sanzo is far from being the cheapest smartphone in the world. In 2016, the Freedom 251 was released in India by a company called Ringing Bells for the shockingly low price of… $3.70. Although many customers received their phones, which seemed legit, Ringing Bells ran into trouble when some of its distributors accused it of not fulfilling all its orders and the company’s CEO ended up behind bars for fraud. Although it does seem doubtful that such a low price could be achieved without some sort of forced labor involved, it does make us wonder about how cheap technology will become during our lifetimes and what this will mean for a continent like Africa.
The National Bank of Ethiopia has finally given the greenlight to the national telecom company, Ethio telecom, to start mobile money services. Foreign firms will initially not be allowed to engage in mobile money service in Ethiopia, except for the one that will eventually acquire the 40% stake in Ethio telecom made available through the company’s on-going partial privatization process. Ethiopia is expected to generate $13 billion in mobile money revenue by 2025.
E-COMMERCE
Embattled e-commerce leader Jumia continues its strategic overhaul with a new partnership with Airtel Kenya that will allow consumers to make prepayments using Airtel Money. The prepayment option, which is already operational in Ghana and Uganda, is aimed both at enhancing contactless safety measures and at limiting the damage to Jumia caused by “last mile” issues such as delivery personnel being unable to find the address, or the customer changing their mind when they see the goods. However, customers will still be allowed to pay on the spot if they choose to, leaving that last issue unresolved. Jumia is also considering opening its logistics operations to third parties in a bid to increase revenue and is looking at expanding into rural areas to reduce reliance on customers in capital cities.
FASHION
September and October mean Fashion Week in the world’s fashion capitals of New York, London, Milan and Paris, and despite the move to digital this year, African talents are out there making their mark. South African knitwear line MaXhosa by designer Laduma Ngxokolo made its second appearance on the official calendar at New York Fashion Week with a vibrant and well-reviewed virtual runway show on Youtube, while LVMH Prize finalist Sindiso Khumalo, who focuses each of her collections on the life of a historical Black woman, debuted her Harriet Tubman-inspired collection with a fashion film presented at Milan Fashion Week. Khumalo’s previous collection was an homage to the Egbado princess Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who was taken as a prisoner of war as a child and spent many years in the British Royal household under Queen Victoria, and the next one will be inspired by South African activist Charlotte Maxeke.
Also showing at Milan Fashion Week were Vogue Italia’s Scouting for Africa Initiative 2020 winners Emmy Kasbit and Rich Mnisi, who are featured in the September issue of Vogue Talents, an initiative supported by the African Fashion Foundation and the Impact Fund for African creatives to recognize emerging African creative talents. Vogue has been a key supporter of African designers globally, and the company’s efforts might even intensify now that Nigerian-Swiss Chioma Nnadi has been named the new editor of Vogue.com. With this promotion, Nnadi joins British Vogue’s Edward Enninful and Teen Vogue’s Lindsay Peoples Wagner among the Black editors-in-chief within the Vogue global franchise.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s Fashion Week, which will be taking place later this month, has been rebranded as the “business of ethical fashion” to echo African fashion business’ on-going transformation into a leader in sustainability. According to CEO Lucilla Booyzen, SAFW has been reimagined as an environmentally-friendly digital experience staged at the Mall of Africa in Johannesburg, which will use a fraction of the lighting typically used, smaller sound systems, smaller teams, and a minimum number of models to reduce the event’s carbon footprint.
Another approach to sustainability is the one of Egyptian online fashion rental service La Reina, which has raised an undisclosed six-figure funding round to expand its team and launch a new fashion subscription service called The Box. La Reina, which has over 100,000 users, allows women to rent their evening and bridal gowns to each other. In 2018, the startup had already secured a $1 million Series A round from Algebra Ventures and 500 Startups. New service The Box will partner with global fashion brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, or Mango to provide the members with the newest collection to be used and returned within a week.
And finally a correction: in the last edition of HUSTLE & FLOW I incorrectly linked to a CNN profile of IAMISIGO’s designer Bubu Ogisi while talking about celebrated stylist Daniel Obasi. Both are extremely talented Nigerian creatives with very distinctive styles, so if you didn’t click on the link last time you now have a second chance to discover them both.
VISUAL ARTS
The Ivorian art world is definitely buzzing these days. In the last edition of HUSTLE & FLOW I talked about Abidjan’s dynamic contemporary art gallery scene. This week, OkayAfrica profiles four young and exciting Ivorian female photographers - Akobs, Aicha Fall, Noella Elloh and Saphir Niakadie - whose work is worth checking out.
In more West African art news, Ghana-born Nigerian sculptor and art world rockstar El Anatsui has been awarded the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture’s 2020 Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture. El Anatsui is well-known for his large scale tapestry-like sculptures composed of thousands of folded pieces of metal sourced from local alcohol recycling stations and bound together with copper wire.
ARCHITECTURE
On a similar topic, Africa’s most famous architect, the Tanzanian-born British architect of Ghanaian descent Sir David Adjaye, has been announced as recipient of the 2021 Royal Institute of British Architects’ royal gold medal, one of the world’s highest accolades for architecture. Adjaye is the first black architect to receive the prestigious distinction in its 173-year history. The very busy Adjaye, who is behind the striking National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC and the Alara concept store in Lagos, is currently building a high-rise tower in Manhattan, the new National Cathedral for Ghana in Accra, a library in Florida, a financial center in Dakar, and the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg.
LITERATURE
And we finish this week’s round up of African creatives just #winning with Zambian author’s Namwali Serpell receiving the UK’s top prize for science fiction, the Arthur C Clarke award, for her first novel The Old Drift. The book, a mix of historical fiction, magical realism and sci-fi, tells the stories of three families over three generations, moving from a colonial settlement by Victoria Falls at the turn of the 20th century, to the 1960s as Zambia attempts to send a woman to the moon, and into the near future. It was described as “the great African novel of the 21st century” by last year’s winner of the prize, Tade Thompson.
MUSIC
In a testament to the global label’s commitment to the growing African market, Zimbabwean Taponeswa Mavunga has been appointed Director of Africa at Sony Music UK. In this newly created position, Mavunga will be responsible for amplifying UK signed artists across Africa, as well as supporting artists within Africa to develop relationships, identify opportunities and increase visibility within the UK. Mavunga is a veteran of the African music scene, having distinguished herself through previous stints as Head of Talent and Music for Viacom Africa, working on MTV Base, BET Africa and Nickelodeon channels, and Head of Publicity for Sony Music’s Columbia UK label.
SPORTS BUSINESS
The scramble for European premier league rights that we have witnessed over the past few weeks doesn’t seem to have satisfied the appetites of broadcasters, who are now busy looking for more, with their attention shifting to local leagues. Multichoice has announced a 5-year title sponsorship by DStv of the South African Premier Soccer League (PSL), while StarTimes has signed a $1.1 million, 7-year contract with the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) for the live broadcast of the local premier league matches, both men and women national teams matches, plus some thirty other matches from the lower-tier of the Kenyan league.
Meanwhile, French club Paris Saint-Germain is launching a football academy in Rwanda, after months of delays caused by the pandemic. The academy is part of a 3-year sponsorship deal that was signed last December between Rwanda and the French football giant which will also see PSG promote Rwanda as a tourism destination. In an opposite move, Dutch club Ajax is exiting its South African franchise Ajax Cape Town after its second successive failure to win promotion back to the Premiership. The 21-year association was meant to produce a steady flow of talented young players for the European market while at the same time sustaining a top club in South Africa's PSL. But the results have proved disappointing, and Ajax management bluntly declared that “the South African football market has not produced enough talent at the level that Ajax strives for” and that “Ajax does not see sufficient potential for the future.” Ouch. Efforts by European clubs to invest in talent sourcing and training in Africa have so far been haphazard. My feeling is that they have suffered from the common symptoms plaguing many Western approaches to Africa: under-investment and lack of adaptation of Western practices to the local environment.
Hopefully this will not be the case of the projects supported by the Agence Francaise de Development’s new African sports initiative, the online platform Sport En Commun. Based in Dakar, the pan-African platform aims to promote the financing and support of projects combining sport and development in Africa by referencing various funding opportunities and connecting interested parties.
BROADCAST
Music TV group Trace has announced that it would institute a permanent 50/50 video airplay for women artists and other women-produced content on its channels, after testing out the concept during Women’s Month in August. It is unclear if this measure will apply to Trace’s channels globally or in South Africa only, but in any case such a self-imposed constraint is a bold move. In fact, Trace seems to be full of good marketing ideas recently as it also just released Trace Xmas, a brand new pop up music channel dedicated entirely to Christmas hits on Sky Channel 364 in the UK, in a bid to “lift the country's spirits”. The hilarious concept will be coming soon to Francophone Africa, the Caribbean and the Reunion. Full disclosure, in 2016 Trace Group acquired my company Buni.tv, which was then merged with their own VOD service Trace Play.
CINEMA EXHIBITION
As major global cinema chains, such as Cineworld Group, announce new shutdowns in the US and UK in the face of a second wave of the pandemic and the repeatedly postponed release of tentpoles like the new James Bond film No Time To Die, the Nigerian cinema exhibition sector is hoping for a strong rebirth carried by local blockbusters. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief when the comedy Fate of Alakada, the first local release since the reopening of theaters, made over 10 million nairas ($25,800) on its Independence Day opening despite seating restrictions, placing it among the top 5 highest grossing opening days for Nollywood since 2018, according to distributor FilmOne Entertainment.
Vivendi’s CanalOlympia will also count on local releases to drive audiences to its first Nigerian location opening in Abuja later this month after a 6-months delay in the company’s roll out plan.
VOD
However, with the past few months’ persistent incertitude over the state of the local cinema business, it is no surprise that the producers of some of Nigeria’s most highly anticipated films - such as Oloture, Citation, or King of Boys II - made the decision to skip cinemas for the first time and release their movies directly on Netflix. The unprecedented move privately shocked many theater owners, who were counting on the high-profile films to restart their business. Threatening the delicate economic balance of Nigeria’s film sector, whose business model is highly dependent on box office revenue to survive, is a risky move for Netflix.
But after all, the global giant might not be interested in playing nice as it is looking for ways to speed up its growth 5 years after it arrived in Africa. Digital TV Research estimates that Netflix currently has 1.4 million subscribers on the continent, still a far cry from Multichoice’s 20 million. Last week, the platform announced it was now experimenting in Nigeria with much cheaper, mobile-only subscriptions priced at $2.95 a month, after trialing similar offers in South Africa and Egypt. Such a strategy has been highly successful in India, and we can expect that it will be as well in Africa, even in countries, like Nigeria, where the internet infrastructure is still lacking. It is, truly, only a matter of time.
Interestingly, Vivendi-owned Canal+ announced last week that it was also developing its own mobile-first VOD service for Francophone Africa, in partnership with iRoko (Canal+ acquired iRoko’s ROK Studios last year). It is not the first time that Canal+ attempts to jump start the VOD market in French-speaking Africa, and it is also not its first try at creating synergies with iRoko. So far, none of it has worked, but I also believe that the market was not ready. Another challenge, which might seem trivial but is not, is creating successful products wile working across the Franco/Anglo cultural and language divide. Good luck to them - we will be watching.
In any case, if we believe Digital TV Research’s new finger-licking guesstimates on Africa’s sVOD industry, at least some of these initiatives are bound to bear fruit as the market is set to grow almost 5 times to reach 12.96 million subscriptions by 2025. Digital TV Research predicts that Netflix will count 5.7 subscribers and Disney+ 2.71 million, even though it is not expected to enter the African market until 2022. Showmax will be the 3rd-largest platform with 1.65 million subscribers.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Double FESPACO winner (Gold Stallion in 2013 and 2017), French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis will dedicate his next feature film to Thelonious Monk, the famous American jazz pianist and composer behind such jazz standards as Well, You Needn’t, Blue Monk and Round Midnight.
ANIMATION
South Africa’s first female-led animation outfit, Studio Yezi, has announced its first project in SOLA, an action-adventure, fantasy coming-of-age series “about the adventures of a girl named Sola who experiences her magic awakening in a world where magic is dangerous and deadly”. Founder Thandiwe Mlauli will act as producer, director and showrunner. Studio Yezi is currently running a crowdfunding campaign (#MakeSOLAHappen) to finance the project’s development and production.
HUSTLE & FLOW #25: Facebook opens an office in Lagos, FilmOne inks with Disney, Trace buys Okuhle, and more
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.
HUSTLE & FLOW #24: Tecno malware steals users airtime, Mdundo goes public in Denmark, IROKO refocuses on international subs, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
On August 28th I woke up, quite uncharacteristically, a little bit before 4 am. I reached out for my phone, which of course you should never do when waking up in the middle of the night. Chadwick Boseman had just died.
The news hit me and millions of people around the world like a sucker punch, not just because a talented artist had passed away shockingly, tragically, and way too young, but also because it is hard not to see the loss of the King of Wakanda, at a time when America is struggling with brutal racial strife, like a pretty bad omen. Who is going to give us hope now that the wise Black Panther is dead?
Well, Disney has reportedly found a solution, and it is Shuri, T’Challa’s little sister, who will assume the mantle going forward.
For those of us writing or producing content in Africa, there was a before and after Black Panther. This film changed the world’s perception about Africa and African creativity more than any politician’s speech, academic paper or news report could ever do. Black Panther may have been a Hollywood movie, but since its release and tremendous success, African creators have been resolutely throwing themselves through this open door.
This week on HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about the revelation that thousands of Tecno phones sold in Africa had been preinstalled with malware eating up users’ airtime without their knowledge (and why I think it won’t threaten Transsion’s leading position on the market); Kenya-based music startup Mdondo going public in Denmark; and IrokoTV refocusing on its international markets after catching some serious headwind in Nigeria. But I’ll also talk about towercos, new education initiatives, children’s literature, Nigerian traditional textiles, and even Kenyan VR.
If you have missed a previous edition of HUSTLE & FLOW, especially over the summer, head to www.restless.global/hustleflow to catch up on the archives (and subscribe!). Please do share your thoughts, comments or even corrections by emailing me at marie@restless.global or reaching out on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES FUNDING
Nairobi-based HEVA Fund has launched its new East Africa Creative Business Fund, which will invest between $20,000-50,000 in creative businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Developed in partnership with the European Commission and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the facility is designed to help businesses restructure interrupted supply chains, increase production capacity, diversify offerings, increase market share increase integration in local and regional value-chains, support the transition to low-touch and digital capabilities, and take advantage of new opportunities.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Leading “towerco” Helios Towers is set to acquire Free Senegal’s passive infrastructure assets for almost $190 million. The deal, which will be subject to regulatory approval by the Senegalese authorities, should come to fruition by the end of the Q1 2021 and is expected to be fully financed by Helios' cash and existing debt facilities. Helios Towers was founded in 2009 with a $350 million backing by private equity firm Helios Investments and high-profile investors such as billionaire George Soros and former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright. In October 2019, the company raised an additional $364 million after listing on the London Stock Exchange. When completed, the Senegal transaction will give Helios Towers the status of the largest independent tower provider in the country with more than 1,200 sites, reinforcing the company’s existing network of 7,000 stations operating across the continent in South Africa, DRC, Ghana, Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The telecoms towers industry is set for strong and sustained growth as African mobile operators continue to expand their networks in the years to come.
MOBILE
Staying in Senegal, virtual operator Promobile, whose launch had been blocked for more than a year by its "partner" Free Senegal (see last edition of HUSTLE & FLOW), has finally decided to team up with Free’s competitor Sonatel. Promobile holds one of the three virtual mobile operator licenses (MVNO) in Senegal and was supposed to launch on Free’s network earlier this year. Noting the stalling of negotiations between the two companies, the Senegalese telecoms regulator had imposed a daily fine on Free Senegal’s owner Saga Africa Holding, an entity controlled by Xavier Niel, Yérim Sow and Hassanein Hiridjee. But Promobile founder Mbackiou Faye, who spent about $5.4 million to create the new operator, just got tired of waiting.
Dramatically raising the bar in terms of mobile shenanigans is the revelation last week that tens of thousands of Transsion phones were sold in Africa preinstalled with harmful malware which downloads subscription apps and signs users up for paid services that eat up their airtime without their knowledge. The shocking news came from a report by security service Secure-D, which says it blocked a total of 19.2 million suspicious subscription sign-ups between March 2019 and August 2020, coming from over 200,000 unique Transsion Tecno W2 devices across 19 countries including Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, Cameroon, and Ghana. China-based Transsion Holdings has put the blame on a “vendor in the supply chain” and said it has released a security patch that users can download to fix the problem. The question is whether the malware controversy will have an impact on future Transsion sales in Africa, where the company currently dominates both the low and middle sectors through several brands including Tecno. My personal view is that people desire cheap smartphones and user-friendly technology so much that they are willing to put up with the occasional security breach and data or even cash theft (just look at all of us using Zoom and TikTok with abandon).
EDUCATION
Several educational initiatives are launching this month across Francophone West Africa. In Togo, Page 49, Yobo Studio and ACTA (Togolese Animation Cinema Association) have teamed up to launch La Maison Junior, a "learning by doing" residency training that will be held in Lomé over a period of 10 months, and will offer 15 participants from different French-speaking African countries the opportunities to acquire skills in the fields of animation, fiction and TV magazine production. The project, which was initiated by Christophe Guignage, creator of the animated Gulli series Junior, des Idees en Or, benefits from the support of the Annecy Animated Film Festival, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the French Institute of Togo. The call for applications opens today September 7.
In Gabon, the new Hema Online Music Academy, the brainchild of MTV Base Africa’s Magali Palmira Wora, will provide professional training in music business and give Gabonese artists the opportunity to interact with other recognized artists and music professionals.
Finally, mobile e-learning startup LAFAAC has partnered with the OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) to produce a free program of training courses primarily intended for producers from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Lasting around 6 hours, the courses will tackle the main principles and tools for setting up a co-production project (film, fiction or TV series, documentary or web series).
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
The dearth of culturally relevant content for African kids is a well-known issue for parents on the continent and in the diaspora. Not a parent himself but inspired by his 6-year-old niece, 23-year-old Dominic Onyekachi has launched Akiddie, a web-based subscription platform providing access to African storybooks for children in different languages. Akiddie currently has 21 books available to readers, including 5 that are accessible for free, and more than 1,200 users including six Lagos schools. Onyekachi, who wrote some of the stories on Akiddie, said a lot of the themes revolve around gender equality, innovation and financial literacy.
FASHION
Vogue Business has a great article this week about how traditional Nigerian hand-woven textiles are being rediscovered by a new generation of designers who appreciate both their complex beauty and their natural, sustainable processes of production that are very much in line with the times. Adire, for example, was (re)introduced on the global fashion stage a few years ago by Amaka Osakwe, designer of high-profile label Maki Oh, worn by Michelle Obama and Lupita Nyong'o. Other textiles include aso oke from the Yoruba, akwete cloth from the Igbo and akwa ocha from the Aniocha people of Delta state. All have featured in the collections of leading Nigerian designers such as Tiffany Amber, Kenneth Ize and Emmy Kasbit. This new focus on traditional textiles is not only a way for designers to promote their cultural heritage, but also offers a path towards sustainably rebuilding the Nigerian textile industry, which was once the largest in Africa. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the country counted more than 180 mills employing 450,000 people, before it joined the WTO and opened its borders to cheap textiles from Asia. Today Nigeria imports $4 billion of ready-made clothing and textiles each year.
This series of shots from photographer Tariq Zaidi’s upcoming first book Sapeurs: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congo is a feast for the eyes. Since the 1920s, the Sapeurs have been making sartorial statements on the streets of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, and their flamboyant style is by now pretty well-known around the world. But Zaidi is bringing a fresh take by including rare photos of female and children Sapeurs, which are very much worth a look.
MUSIC
One of this week’s most notable news is the listing on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Denmark of Kenya-based music service Mdundo, following an oversubscribed pre-sale period that raised $6.4 million. Launched in 2013 in Nairobi by Danish entrepreneur Martin Nielsen, Mdundo provides access to a large catalog of popular African music to over five million monthly active users in 15 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and reports over 20 million monthly downloads and streams via its website and app. The company plans to use the newly secured funds to continue its expansion across new African markets. Of course, this does nothing to alleviate the controversy over the fact that 70% of startups founders (2018 figure) who have raised $1 million or more in Kenya are white expatriates.
FILM
After his first feature Run premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2014, Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte continues to impress with his new film Night of the Kings (La Nuit des Rois), which screened at the Venice Film Festival last week.
Meanwhile, the film adaptation of Franco-Rwandan rapper and writer Gaël Faye’s 2016 novel Petit Pays, directed by Eric Barbier, is currently showing in French cinemas. Set in Burundi, the film was shot in neighboring Rwanda, the second international film to be shot in the country since it actively started promoting itself as a regional film hub. Our Lady of the Nile, an adaptation of Scholastique Mukasonga’s novel directed by Afghan filmmaker Atiq Rahimi, premiered at TIFF in 2019. For good measure, here’s a quick list of established Rwandan film directors who could direct this kind of films: Kivu Ruhorahoza, Joël Karekezi, Eric Kabera, Clémentine Dusabejambo, Thierry Dushimirimana, Kantarama Gahigiri, Jacqueline Kalimunda.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Pan-African company Rainbow Sports talks to New African Magazine about its ambition to build a pipeline of African sports superstars, starting with football, by fundamentally transforming the underlying structure of the African sports ecosystem. The company’s most notorious feat so far is the discovery of 2017 Africa Cup of Nations winner Christian Bassogog, today one of the best-paid players in the Chinese Super League. Rainbow Sports developed the Cameroonian player through domestic soccer, a stint in Denmark, to national representation and being a professional in China, and it now wants to apply the same strategy to cohorts of young players from across the continent. Rainbow aims to control the entire value chain to enable their players to progress to the top seamlessly, all the while also investing in their personal development as only a small fraction is destined to stardom. The group has recently bought a second division club in the Czech Republic, where they can expose their young talents to European football. It is now listing a $26 million (GPB 20 million) bond on Euronext Dublin to buy 4 European clubs and set up a developmental system within 10 African clubs.
Still in football, retired Ivorian star striker Didier Drogba's hopes of becoming the next president of Ivory Coast's football federation (FIF) were controversially dashed by the electoral commission 10 days ago, but could be restored after FIFA stepped in to review the entire process. The Africa Report has a play by play of the entire soap opera.
And finally, Canal+ has acquired the sub-Saharan Africa French-language broadcast rights to Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 matches for three years. The French Pay TV operator also secured a four-season extension with the Spanish LaLiga, which it will share with rival broadcaster Startimes across sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and Mauritius.
BROADCAST
Talking about Startimes, the Chinese Pay TV company has admitted that it still has to see any profit from its business in Nigeria, ten years after launching on the market. In 2018, the company said it had invested over $220 million in Nigeria since 2010. Startimes is currently the leading Pay TV broadcaster in Nigeria in terms of number of subscribers thanks to its affordable entry-level plans, but Multichoice rakes in more revenue. Will it all be worth it in the end? Possibly. According to PwC, Pay TV revenues in Nigeria crossed $500 million in 2018 and are expected to remain a significant part of all TV and Video earnings in the country, which should surpass $900 million by 2023.
But that is if the already-harsh business environment doesn’t get even worse. After releasing its new broadcasting code that seeks to put an end to content exclusivity (a move that primarily targets Multichoice’s monopoly over sports rights), Nigeria’s National Broadcasting Commission is trying to prevent Multichoice from increasing its subscription prices while also stating that it would not tolerate any move from the company to fire its workers under any circumstance. Seems like the NBC wants to have its cake and eat it too.
With that, it is no surprise if Multichoice is turning to other African markets in search of growth. Following its success with local channels like Mzansi Magic in South Africa, Pearl Magic in Uganda and Zambezi Magic in Zambia, the company is now looking to create similarly localized entertainment channels in Ghana, Ethiopia and Mozambique. This could provide a welcome boost for these countries’ film industries as Multichoice typically doesn’t hesitate to invest in local original content.
VOD
Leading Nigerian VOD platform IrokoTV has announced that it would be forced to cut 150 jobs and refocus on its international subscribers which contribute over 80% of its revenue. CEO Jason Njoku disclosed that the company has lost at least $30 million over its lifetime with its focus on the African market. For a brief moment, the pandemic spurred a growth for Iroko in Nigeria, but a combination of value-destroying devaluation, COVID-19 recession, and unfair government regulations are now forcing the company to shift its attention away from Africa. Jason can at least celebrate one small victory: the absurd 5% levy that the Film and Video Censors Board had attempted to impose on all local content produced and sold in Lagos, and against which Jason had been particularly vocal, was cancelled by the State government over the weekend.
One may think that IrokoTV’s struggles, well documented and analyzed by Jason himself, would provide a cautionary tale to the new batch of local VOD platforms seeking to launch on the continent. But no. In the past few days we’ve heard about Wi-flix, which has partnered with Trace TV and a few others to launch an entertainment package mixing on-demand content and live TV, and CineMagic, South Africa’s newest streaming service that is currently looking for short films to help shore-up its local content catalogue. I could also mention the recently launched Afroland TV, Vuma TV and MyMovies.Africa. If you have been a HUSTLE & FLOW reader for some time, you know that I believe that the Africa streaming war has been won before it even began by Netflix (and possibly Showmax) and that attempting to carve out a space as a niche local player is now a waste of time and money.
One space I’m more optimistic about is mobile video, but it’s been so far dominated by the telcos themselves. Mobile content startup StarNews Mobile is a notable exception, having just announced that it had passed the 5 million subscriber mark after less than 3 years in operation. Full disclaimer: I am an early investor and advisor in StarNews. The company targets the mass market with a network of over 50 mobile channels offering celebrity-based content priced at low daily subscription rates, and is active in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and South Africa, through partnerships with MTN, Moov and Orange.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
In African diaspora Hollywood news this week, Ghanaian multi-talented artist and Black is King co-director Blitz Bazawule has been tapped by Warner Bros to helm the feature adaptation of The Color Purple Broadway musical, while Nigerian-American writer/director Chinonye Chukwu is set to direct a feature film about Emmett Louis Till’s tragic torture and death in 1955 and the relentless pursuit of justice by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley.
CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
Canal+’s stylish Senegalese crime series Sakho and Mangane, created and directed by the French-Congolese Jean-Luc Herbulot, was acquired by All 4, the VOD service of the UK’s Channel 4. The Financial Times gives the show an enthusiastic review here. As far as I know, Sakho and Mangane is the only African TV show produced by Canal+ that has sold outside of the continent (please correct me if I’m wrong).
VIRTUAL REALITY
African Space Makers, Africa’s first interactive mockumentary series using virtual reality, is also the first Kenyan VR film to be showcased at the 77th Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica 2020. A co-production between The Nrb Bus / Cultural Video Productions, Black Rhino VR and INVR.SPACE, the film takes viewers on an interactive journey through five urban collectives that work in Nairobi’s creative industry.
ANIMATION
And to wrap up this week’s edition, Lwanda Magere, the short film produced by Kenyan animation studio Apes in Space based on the famous Kenyan folk hero of the same name, has been selected for the LA Shorts International Film Festival. To date, Apes in Space’s work has received international acclaim at the Abidjan Film and Animation Festival, the Accra Animation Film Festival, the Lagos International Festival of Animation, and the Lift-Off Global Network Film Festival.
HUSTLE & FLOW #23: Ethiopia’s telco bids stall, Grand Egyptian Museum nears completion, Burna Boy releases Twice as Tall, and more
Dear colleagues and friends,
First off, my apologies for skipping one week out of my planned publishing schedule (this edition of HUSTLE & FLOW was supposed to go out last week). It appears that many months of intense work with no play, combined with a dragged-out house renovation and a move to a different country, have led me to one of those dreaded COVID burnouts. Something had to give. But I am back now and excited to share fresh business insights on African entertainment with you.
As we near the end of August, it is still unclear what the post-COVID world has in store for us. While the United-States are suspended in a state of limbo until the November presidential elections, and Europe is delaying its economic reckoning until the end of its sacred summer vacations, worrying signs of where Africa may be headed have started to appear.
Nigeria has always been a tough market for outsiders, the latest victim being South African grocery retailer Shoprite, which threw in the towel a couple weeks ago and is exiting the country. But in recent months, a series of decidedly non-business friendly new taxes and regulations are making even battle-hardened local entrepreneurs seriously question their ability to survive in that environment. Tech startups are moving out of Lagos to escape harassment by the state government, which also just imposed a new 5% tax on film production; the controversial new broadcasting code may succeed in driving Multichoice away; and cinemas still haven’t been allowed to reopen (but airports have).
Meanwhile Ghana, despite being the seat of the African Continental Free Trade Area secretariat, is now asking foreign traders and investors for a minimum of $1 million in cash or equity for the privilege of doing business in the country. Another approach to alternative revenue generation is that of Kenya, where some $400 million in COVID relief funds seem to have found their way into the pockets of #COVID19millionaires. All that extra taxing and looting is probably not what experts had in mind when they recommended that African governments take advantage of the crisis to diversify their economies.
This week in HUSTLE & FLOW, I’ll talk about Ethiopia’s about-face on the highly anticipated opening of its telco space to foreign investors (the inward-looking trend is definitely in motion); Cairo’s upcoming Grand Egyptian Museum and its big bet on Tutankhamun to lure tourists back; and Burna Boy’s star shining bright as he releases his P. Diddy-produced album Twice as Tall.
Going forward, I will continue to release HUSTLE & FLOW twice a month, instead of every week, as this new format seems satisfying for you and more sustainable for me. As always, previous editions can be accessed here. Please do continue to engage by emailing me at marie@restless.global or by reaching out on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter @marieloramungai.
Happy reading to all,
Marie
MOBILE
MTN Group has appointed CFO Ralph Mupita as its new president and CEO. A couple of weeks ago, outgoing President Rob Shuter had revealed the organization's plans to exit its Middle Eastern markets and focus on the pursuit of a panafrican strategy. In June, the company reported a 9.4% half-year revenue growth and an extra 11 million subscribers, bringing its total panafrican subscriber base to over 260 million.
Local reports suggest that the Ethiopian authorities are considering applying the brakes on foreign investments in its telco space, just after the government asked for bids for a 40% stake in national operator Ethio Telecom. As we discussed in previous editions of HUSTLE & FLOW, the opportunity to enter this previously locked down market had generated a massive amount of interest from a variety of industry players, including MTN, Orange, Safaricom and Helios Towers. However the process has apparently encountered strong opposition from Ethio Telecom itself, which had recently announced strong annual revenues of over $1.3 billion and the growth of its subscriber base to 46 million people, or just under half the country’s population. As of now, the entire bidding process seems to be on hold, to the dismay of foreign investors.
In Senegal, Free (formerly Tigo Senegal) was imposed a heavy penalty by the regulator for blocking the launch of virtual operator (MVNO) Promobile for more than a year, despite Promobile being authorized to operate on Free’s network. According to Promobile, Saga Africa Holding, the company which owns Free in Senegal, wanted to sell voice communications for three times the price that it charges itself and refused to allow future Promobile users to receive calls and SMS from outside operators.
Finally, Safaricom seems to be the latest telco player to jump on the super app bandwagon as M-Pesa announced an upcoming consumer “lifestyle” offering, which will embed a selection of goods and services into its mobile-money app. The offer is expected to be launched first in Kenya within the next 12 months and then extended to other African markets.
E-COMMERCE
Continuing on the topic of e-commerce, Ethiopia’s Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) and Visa have announced a strategic partnership to acquire payment gateway CyberSource, through which BoA will become a member of Visa’s global payments ecosystem. The partnership makes BoA the first bank in Ethiopia to support e-commerce by enabling businesses to accept online payments using credit cards.
Less than a year after Jumia exited the country, Tanzania is ironically experiencing an e-commerce boom, courtesy of COVID. Multiple e-commerce platforms have sprung up, from food and grocery delivery apps like Piki to ‘online malls’ such as Duka.direct or Inalipa. The new services recognize that Jumia has opened the door for them by educating the market. However, contrary to the e-commerce giant, they are taking the approach to grow slowly and sustainably.
VISUAL ARTS
Over the summer, Le Monde has been running a multiple article series dedicated to African museums from Burkina Faso to Madagascar, including Ivory Coast’s first institution dedicated to contemporary cultures which opened recently in Abidjan’s popular neighborhood of Abobo. The museum is named after Adama Toungara, former minister of oil and energy, mayor of Abobo for almost twenty years, and one of the country’s biggest private collectors. Conceived by Ivorian superstar architect Issa Diabaté, the building offers a plurality of spaces designed to attract a diverse audience, with two exhibition rooms, painting workshops, media and book libraries and a space reserved for dance.
ARCHITECTURE
Al Jazeera has an in-depth profile of 84-year-old artist and architect Demas Nwoko, who was recently commissioned by the Nigerian government to design the new National Gallery in Abuja. For the past 60 years, Nwoko has developed and formalized a creative approach grounded in the knowledge of African art traditions, with the conscious addition of Western innovations where useful. Nwoko uses on-site materials such as laterite soil, trees and stones, which are resilient to the local environment and even become more beautiful with time and wear, and builds natural cooling systems through strategically placed ventilation portals. The result: his Ibadan home has never needed renovation or significant repair since completion in 1964.
HERITAGE
Cairo’s upcoming Grand Egyptian Museum is nearing completion and should open next year, after 8 years of work and multiple delays. The $1 billion, 500,000 square meters project is the size of a major airport terminal and was financed through loans from Japan. It will re-house and restore the country's most precious artifacts including the iconic treasures of Tutankhamun, which Egypt hopes will be enough of a draw to drive tourists back to a region which has suffered greatly from the double impact of the 2011 Egyptian revolution and this year’s pandemic.
FASHION
Loved Black is King? Looking to expand on the experience by acquiring some Beyoncé-approved African fashion? The singer is sharing her "Black Parade Route," a personal directory of Black- and African-owned small businesses curated by Queen Bey’s own stylist Zerina Akers, the founder of Black Owned Everything.
Not on the Beyoncé list however are Africain streetwear brands like Nigeria’s Waffles N Cream and Vivendii (which collaborated on a project with Virgil Alboh's Off-White and Nike) or Ghana’s Free the Youth, which are working hard to prove that there is more to African fashion than hand-made custom gowns and jewelry. Whereas the style has become mainstream in the West and in parts of Asia, in West Africa, where popular culture is largely shaped by the flamboyant Afrobeats party scene, streetwear (and its associated alté subculture - more on that below) conveys an aura of youth rebellion that may be closer to hip hop’s original roots.
MUSIC
On August 13, Nigerian megastar Burna Boy released his new album Twice as Tall, executive produced by none other than Sean Combs aka P. Diddy, and he “has the whole world listening” according to the New York Times. The album got over five million streams in just an hour after it dropped, and quickly reached number one in 31 countries. From the moment he sold out the Wembley SSE Arena in London in 2019, to his 2020 Grammy nomination, being featured solo in Beyonce’s Black is King, and now capturing the global charts, the 29-year-old artist has had one hell of a year, as I’ve written repeatedly in this newsletter.
And he’s even got his name on the song of the summer - the remix of 2019 rhythmic South African gospel track Jerusalema by South African producer and DJ Master KG featuring vocalist Nomcebo Zikode, on which Burna Boy was called in to sprinkle in some Naija flavor. The result is so infectious that the song has reached every corner of the globe in the form of the #jerusalemadancechallenge. Master KG attributed the moves in the dance to a group of Angolan fans who put together a candid video, which quickly reached Portugal and then spread from there.
The fact that Burna Boy calls his music Afro-fusion rather than the catch-all Afrobeats is a possible hint that the future Nigerian sounds to find success globally will be more diverse. On that topic, the French daily Liberation digs into the rising influence of Nigeria's “alté” subculture (The Guardian has a similar article here in English), which is carried by artists with different inspirations mixing jazz, r&b and hip hop, but who have in common to have broken out online and being committed to freely expressing their individuality in a culture that can be quite conventional.
DANCE
A couple of months ago, the video of a young boy ballet dancing, barefoot on raw concrete and in the rain, went viral with 20 million views worldwide. Since, then the internet has done its thing and changed the life not only of that boy (11-year-old Anthony Mmesoma Madu) but also of his teacher Daniel Owoseni Ajala and fellow students at Lagos’ Leap of Dance Academy, who have been offered resources and training opportunities by supporters from around the world. You can bet that it’s only a matter of time before this inspiring story finds its way onto the screens.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Global Pay-TV spending for sports media rights reached its apex with $48.2 billion spent in 2019 before the pandemic hit, according to sports marketing agency Two Circles. The company advises sports rights holders to end their current reliance on Pay-TV income, which is bound to decline, and transition to a ‘hybrid media model’ by developing new packages of content comprising live, near-live and non-live rights that can be commercialized through various media partnerships with free or paid linear or VOD services. Although this trend is likely to take some time to reach Africa, where StarTimes just announced the acquisition of the French-language broadcasting rights to the Spanish LaLiga and the UEFA Nations League, the signs of overheating are already there as Multichoice hesitates to renew its English Premier League rights in Nigeria, leaving the door open for more innovative deals.
BROADCAST
Still on the topic of African Pay-TV, Ndubuisi Ekekwe breaks down one of the major reasons (if not the major reason) why challengers have found it near impossible to build alternatives to Multichoice, and it has to do with how these businesses are financed. Indeed, Multichoice is backed by South African media and tech giant Naspers, “which has so much money that it could buy all the publicly traded stocks in Nigeria with just 30% of the Group’s market cap”, writes Ekekwe. This means that MultiChoice was not built with debt, while other players in Nigeria such as HiTv or TStv were saddled with 25% interest rate loans. “It is nearly impossible to grow faster than your bank interest rate. Yes, if the interest is 25%, it technically means that to have the capacity to pay that loan, you need to be hitting excess of 40%, on value creation. That is nearly impossible in a media business where leverageables are linear, not exponential. At 25-27% interest on debt, most businesses cannot survive and you will be a slave to the banks for life.” What Ekekwe says here is valid not only in the media space but for most businesses in Africa, and especially in the seed and growth phases.
Meanwhile, consulting firm Accenture is optimistic when it comes to the future of South Africa’s film and television industry, which it says has the potential to grow by close to $6 billion over the next five years by embracing digital technologies. That additional benefit could come from advertising revenue as well as investment in local film productions - particularly from global streaming platforms with deep pockets.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Eighteen film or TV projects supported by the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) will be presented during the DISCOP AFRICA virtual market which will take place on October 28-29, 2020. The projects, which include 7 series, 7 feature films and 4 documentaries, are in various stages of development or production and have for the most part been structured as international co-productions between several African, Caribbean and European countries. The presentation of these 18 projects is organized within the framework of CLAP ACP, a program to strengthen South-South co-productions led by the OIF in partnership with FONSIC (Côte d'Ivoire), with financial assistance from the Union European Union and the support of the Organization of ACP States (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific).
VOD
Still in South Africa, Multichoice has finally introduced the much-awaited DStv dishless streaming service, which will enable subscribers to access its Pay-TV services directly through the Dstv app. The company confirmed that the DStv dishless platform would offer the same content and channels as the existing service. In case you weren’t sufficiently confused already, Multichoice also runs its standalone VOD platform Showmax, and recently rolled out two new offerings, DStv Explora Ultra, a new decoder with added features, and DStv Streama which lets viewers swap from DStv to Showmax or YouTube, making it a “one stop shop” for all things entertainment.
Talking about Showmax, executives at the company have announced that Multichoice’s hit show Big Brother Naija had "broken the record for the most-watched live-streamed entertainment show" on the platform. According to Showmax, "Nigeria accounts for almost 50% of the viewing hours, South Africa 30% and 15% from Kenya. Ghana, Botswana, Namibia and Uganda also see unusual viewing traffic for Big Brother Naija." The power of this show is currently without comparison on the continent. As I’ve said before, I believe this makes a strong business case for Netflix to get on the Naija-flavored reality show bandwagon now now.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Going viral today is truly like winning the jackpot. At least it’s how it must have felt to the Ikorodu Bois, the group of young Nigerian mimikers famous for humorously recreating the trailers of big productions such as Extraction or Casa de Papel, when they received a full film equipment package gifted by Netflix. They will also receive mentoring from star director Kunle Afolayan. The Ikorodu Bois’ Extraction video racked up 11.4 million views and more than 160,000 shares on Twitter, and received praise from star Chris Hemsworth and producers the Russo brothers, who also invited the group to the premiere of Extraction 2. No doubt that these ones are on their way.
ANIMATION
Leading Ivorian studio Afrikatoon has released King Keita, its new 26-episodes animated series recounting the adventures of Soundiata Keita, the Emperor of Mali who, after his accession to the throne, will have the onerous responsibility of implementing the “Mandé Charter”, the new rules decreed by him.
COMIC BOOK
And finally, Kenya’s The Nest Collective has released two digital comic books, based on the stories of traditional female leaders Mekatilili wa Menza and Wangu wa Makeri. Over the years, the Nest has built a certain expertise in narratives that focus on women, sexuality or gender, and their diverse portfolio of works (spanning film, fashion, photography and more) is worth checking out if you are interested in these topics.