YouTube Music supports two Nigerian organisations to enhance Africa’s creative economy

YouTube Music reaffirmed its commitment to supporting African creative voices today by providing financial grants, capacity development training, and advisory services to two organizations that nurture and export African creative talent.

Briteswan and iManage Africa Entertainment Limited will receive funding to help them scale up their initiatives to develop African music creatives.

This change is expected to have a direct impact on approximately 300 participants in initiatives led by these organizations.

“We are committed to exporting African music to listeners across the world and want to continue to play our part in the development of the continent’s rapidly growing creative economy especially with respect to music”, says Addy Awofisayo, YouTube’s Head of Music, Sub-Saharan Africa.

This will be an ongoing process, according to Addy, who told journalists at an announcement event in Lagos that Youtube Music is looking for similar exciting ideas and that her team will consider proposals from similar institutions.

Briteswan’s Background

Briteswan is a social enterprise primarily focused on the entertainment industry’s growth and development. Its impact will be felt through its ‘The Audiogirl initiative,’ which aims to economically empower women by closing the gender gap in music creation – production, songwriting, mixing, and mastering.

The AudioGirl Initiative, according to Enetie Ondiok, project coordinator at Briteswan, is geared toward women. It aims to economically empower women by closing the gender gap in the music creation segment.

“Now, the industry is male-dominated. The “Inclusion in the Recording Studio” report states that women make up 2.1% of music producers. These figures are even lower in the Nigerian Music industry where the ratio of female to male music producers is 1:10. This has hindered the economic development of not just women but the industry as a whole and Africa as a Continent. We understand that inequality is at the grassroots of Africa’s state of poverty and we are seek to solve that in our own way”

Enetie Ondiok, project coordinator at Briteswan

The initiative includes a 10-day boot camp for 12 selected females (aged 18 to 35), who will be mentored by experienced industry players. It will primarily concentrate on the Music Creation Process – songwriting, music production, mixing, mastering, and distribution. The program also includes a competition segment in which the top three finalists will be chosen to work on a year-end album project.

Participants who are interested in participating in the 2022 BootCamp can register here.

About iManage Africa

The impact of iManage Africa Entertainment Limited will be felt through its ‘Music Business Academy for Africa (MBA).’ This is an initiative aimed at educating and empowering the African music and entertainment industry’s workforce.

The MBA is dedicated to developing a more informed and empowered workforce for the African Music and Entertainment industry, according to Godwin Tom, founder of iManage Africa Entertainment. He claims that:

“Very often, we know and celebrate popular artistes but very little is said about the people who support them to be productive- talk about producers, managers, writers, mixers etc. Because we do not pay attention to these talents and their developments, it is difficult getting professionals in this field readily available. For instance, the decision to start people in music management stems from our own experience and we have been able to solve the problem for ourselves to an extent”.

Support from an organization such as YouTube videos will enable him to scale talent development across so many areas that he will be able to support current and future music talents reliably across Africa in a few years,” he concludes.

MBA for Africa began in 2017 as an internship program and later evolved into a talent management training program. In collaboration with NYU’s Music Business Department, we created a program and curriculum with an African focus. 300 participants will be chosen to be a part of the program, with 50 of them receiving additional YouTube support.

Among other things…

YouTube has helped to highlight African culture and export it to a global audience in recent years. Burna Boy, who won the Grammy’s Global Music Award in 2021 with his album ‘Twice as Tall’ and has now been nominated for a Grammy Award for the third time, was featured on YouTube as an Artist on the Rise in 2018.

In 2019, YouTube announced an initiative to support Nigerian artists in collaboration with Mr Eazi’s empawa Africa to support the development of ten local artists. Tems and Bella Shmurda were also chosen to participate in Foundry, YouTube Music’s international artist development program, in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

YouTube Music also increased its investments in Black communities by accepting applications for the #YouTubeBlackVoices Music Class of 2022, which aims to help Black artists, songwriters, and producers all over the world commercialize their work. The #YouTubeBlackVoices Music Class of 2022 includes eight African artists, songwriters, and producers.