What you need to know about the new direct marketing guidance note
Nadine Mather and Chloë Loubser
Pick the African song of the year for 2010
Sixty artists are competing to be the winner of the first StarAfrica Sounds search for great new talent in African music. Anyone with Internet connection can go to StarAfrica.com/sounds and listen to tracks from new, unsigned bands, and vote for the ones they like.
StarAfrica.com is the first online portal by and for Africans, with content from contributors and journalists around the continent. StarAfrica Sounds is an attempt to do what was once impossible - to find unsigned young talent from across the whole of Africa, and let all Africans participate in picking the “Sound of Africa”. The first part of the project was to reach out to artists and encourage them to upload their tracks by the April deadline - and once it was clear that enough high-quality tracks were entered, to call on people to vote.
Pan-African music competition
“StarAfrica Sounds is the first time that a pan-African music competition for fresh new talent can really reach the hearts, minds and ears of people all over the continent. Internet access has reached into almost every town and city in every country and so many people have now gone online. Now music lovers can go and easily find awesome talent from across Africa, and vote for the artists that make you proud to be African, where so much of modern Western music originated,” said Corinne Lozé, CEO of StarAfrica.com.
Seven musicians from South Africa have submitted entries, against seven from Kenya, 20 from Nigeria, and many more from the region. Now it is only a matter of time and votes to see who will take the honours - to be showcased for the entire year online, and a chance to release their debut album, professionally produced and recorded by Africa Unsigned.
The jury
On 19 May the winner will be announced - picked from the top-five most-voted-for songs by a jury of five top African music industry figures. They are Toumani Diabaté, a Malian musician famous for his mastery of kora (African harp/lute), Dudu Sarr, a top African DJ and founder of the Afrotonic movement, Leslie Kasumba, a DJ and producer on the South African hip-hop scene, Thomas Gesthuyzen, creator of africanhiphop.com and promoter of African hip-hop music, and Jason Curtis, a prominent music journalist and music awards judge.
