Social media: Africa's new musical frontier

17 Feb 2011

"When people hear about Africans and the internet, they immediately think of 419 scams," says Ngozi Odita, who runs societyhae.com, a collective of voices that is creating a global network of creativity. The Nigerian-born, Brooklyn-based designer is out to prove there's so much more to the way the continent uses the internet - by highlighting how artists from Africa are using social media to get their music across the world.

Social media: Africa's new musical frontier

"There are 400-million cellphone subscribers in Africa. They're logging onto Facebook and Twitter through their phones, says Odita. "Musicians from Africa are engaging with their fans through this. You have artists in Nigeria, who have 20 000 followers and many of them are mostly African. This shows how Africans are really using the tools and engaging with them."

"They tell people what the artists are doing and they're sharing what's going on in their neighbourhood, their Africa," she adds. "When you think of African musicians, you think of Fela Kuti and Youssou N'Dour, but there are so many artists who are coming up that also deserve attention."

Like Blitz the Ambassador, a Ghanian musician and filmmaker, who certainly lives up to his name, making sure he is represents his continent, while living in Brooklyn. "I don't print out flyers anymore, so I can email or Facebook people in Detroit or NYC, even if they can't come to the show, they still know about it." But he admits, it takes a bit of time to get comfortable with social media. "Twitter is still a new thing to me. It takes a while for me. Only after I am done with the action, do I think, I should have tweeted that!"

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Source: Memeburn

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