Stanley Enow - Caramel (Behind The Scenes) ft. Davido

Lupita Nyong’O Opens Up About Sexual Harassment by Harvey Weinstein

Amidst the piling sexual harassment accusation against American movie producer, Harvey Weinstein, Kenyan Nollywood star, Lupita Nyong’O has revealed in a trending op-ed on New York Times how the celebrated movie maker assaulted her.

Harvey Weinstein

In the detailed piece, Lupita Nyong’O gave her shocking experience especially how she felt “unsafe” and how his behavior was inappropriate. She shared:

“Harvey led me into a bedroom — his bedroom — and announced that he wanted to give me a massage,” Nyong’o wrote. “I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times.”

Weinsten then told the actress that he wanted to remove his pants, which Nyong’o responded would be inappropriate. “I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable,” she wrote. ”He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that.”

“I did not know that things could change,” Nyong’o added. “I did not know that anybody wanted things to change. So my survival plan was to avoid Harvey and men like him at all costs, and I did not know that I had allies in this.”

In her final notes, Lupita Nyong’O shared: “I hope we are in a pivotal moment where a sisterhood  and brotherhood of allies — is being formed in our industry. I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up about abuse and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed. That’s why we don’t speak up — for fear of suffering twice, and for fear of being labeled and characterized by our moment of powerlessness.”


Since the newspaper first published their expose about Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment and abuse over a three-decade period, numerous women including Cara Delevingne, Angelina Jolie and
Gwyneth Paltrow have all come forward with their own tales about the mogul.

On another occasion, Lupita was invited to dinner with Weinstein, when things once again took a turn for the worse.Before the starters arrived, he announced: 'Let's cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal,'" she wrote, adding that she declined and he then told her to leave. When she asked him if they were "good", Harvey answered: "I don't know about your career, but you'll be fine."

"I did not see Harvey again until September 2013 when I was in Toronto for the premiere of 12 Years a Slave, the first feature film I was in," Lupita continued. "He said he couldn't believe how fast I had gotten to where I was, and that he had treated me so badly in the past. He was ashamed of his actions and he promised to respect me moving forward. I said thank you and left it at that. But I made a quiet promise to myself to never ever work with Harvey Weinstein."
After Lupita won her Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, Weinstein tried to work with her again, but she refused.

AFRICA: THE NEXT GLOBAL MUSIC OPPORTUNITY

For understandable, but not necessarily justifiable reasons, Sub-Saharan Africa has been the scourge of the international recorded music industry for decades.

Africa is a vast continent that has delivered comparatively little financially in return for investments.

Copyright protection, as agreed by treaties internationally, has been almost non-existent in practice. Fiscal infrastructures for securing revenues have been constantly unpredictable.

But in the 21st century, the era of digital tech, social media marketing, mobile apps and streaming distribution, opportunities are opening up for African and international rights music holders in the region.

Many are predicting the world’s next global music star or hit could come from Sub-Saharan Africa:

South African telecom behemoth MTN Group generated a reported $70m from its pan-African subscription-funded streaming music service in the first six months of 2016 alone?

And CNBC reports that Nigeria, Africa’s biggest territory by population, releases 500 plus albums annually. With the rampant piracy market, it is difficult to know how much income sales yielded. Accountancy giant PwC predicts Nigeria’s total music sector should generate $86m by 2020.

The French division of international digital distribution outfit believe digital started offering video distribution deals to local African indie labels in 2016. The company felt confident to make that move thanks to the grow thin local-music catalogues, the gradually increasing Internet and digital media penetration, and the strong billing infrastructures setup by telecom companies delivering music content as part of their services.

Africans are among the most prolific creators and consumers of popular music:

Music is being played everyday, round-the-clock, at home and at work, at birthday parties and graduation celebrations, at schools and churches, at weddings and funerals, on the street and at corporate events.

African music is already popular worldwide:

The global fame of veterans like South Africa’s Miriam Makeba, Lady-smith Black Mambazo and Hugh Masekela, Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, Angelique Kidjo from Benin and Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi has raised international awareness of the region’s exceptional talent. Another generation of equally influential stars singing Hip Hop, R&B, Afrobeat and numerous indigenous sounds has since appeared. They include Davido, Efya, Cassper Nyovest, Sauti Sol and Lira.

Zimbabwean veteran Oliver Mtukudzi has sold 700,000 units in South Africa via the country’s biggest label Gallo Record Company and continues to do so from his catalogue.

There is nothing to say why more cannot be achieved in a region rich in natural resources, a youthful population, arising educated middle class, an accelerating adoption of digital media, and abundant potential for economic growth as opportunity knocks within Sub-Saharan Africa:

• After more than 20 years’ absence, the major labels are returning to Africa.
• Legally accessed streaming is gradually winning over young fans.
• Social media networks are empowering African artists and labels to reach fans directly.
• Big-name brand owners like MTN Group, Vodafone, Unilever and Coca-Cola to sponsor live music events and festivals.
• International hit makers such as Chris Brown, Travis Scott, 50 Cent, Sir Paul McCartney, Jay-Z, Ciara and Rick Ross are collaborating with African acts and linked to African ventures.

Several African countries are signatories to international copyright treaties and conventions:

These include the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, the Geneva Phonograms Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention(ParisTreaty), the TRIPs Agreement, the Rome Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaties.

Enforcing them in the developing African markets has been almost impossible. However, anti-piracy policies have been yielding success in South Africa, where the battle against the illegal use and sale of music has been led by local collective trade association RiSA (the Recording Industry of South Africa).

Another pro-active copyright organization has been COSON(Copyright Society of Nigeria), which has been working with global trade body IFPI to pursue, collect and distribute sound-recording royalties in Nigeria.

CISAC, the Paris-based international umbrella organization for the world’s collecting societies, says it had 33 African members by May 2016.

American rapper Lil Jon builds school in Ghana

Award-winning American rapper and producer,  Lil Jon has commissioned a three unit KG Classroom block with ancillary office and washroom facilities at Abomayaw, a rural community in Asuogyaman district of the Eastern region of Ghana

He commissioned the project in memory and honour of his mother, Carrie M. Smith.

Lil Jon, who is known in real life as Jonathan Smith, commissioned the project on Thursday October 12, 2017 and was done in partnership with nonprofit organization Pencils of Promise.

According to the 46-year-old rapper who is reportedly worth $25 million, his family chose Ghana for the project because they are black Americans and thus bias for Ghana.

Ghana has embrace a lot of African American with dual nationality and it is  rea expanding community developmental and investment growth across the country .meanwhile in country like Cameroon dual nationality is consider by the imperial dictator regime as a threat to their crooked ways of leadership .
They  are so many Cameroonians in the diaspora who has the good faith to bring up start up companies that will grant job opportunities for the unemployed youths , but the foundation of doing business in Cameroon has been destroy by heavy weight mass corruption and embezzlement .

He told Starr News that “this is the first Project we've done together of this kind and it is amazing to see the community come out to support and the appreciation they are showing for us building the school and I just feel like I’m lost for words of how amazing it feels to give the community something like this school.”

He added that children in their early ages learn so many things therefore the need to get a conducive learning environment.

“Kindergarten kids at their age they keep up so much stuff so if you can provide appropriate environment for education it can make learning very easy for them and I’m glad I can help facilitate that for these kids looking at where they came from, open basically sheds outside, you can imagine the heat and the obstruction and now they have a well building if it rains.”

JOIN MIDEM, THE INTERNATIONAL B2B MUSIC MARKET 5-8 June 2018, Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France

Midem is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale, which is organised annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. The trade show, which is billed as the leading international business event for the music ecosystem, has been held since 1967. Several thousand musicians, producers, agents, managers, lawyers, executives, entrepreneurs and journalists from around the globe regularly attend the event, which is usually held at the end of January or early February. While delegates from recording, artist management, and publishers network, new artists showcase their material. Also live music is on show in the evenings.

The event is developing like the industry and is now focused on the core music business (labels, publishers, rights societies and more), the technology sector (startups, developers and big tech companies), and brands and the agencies that represent them (for music and brand campaigns).

Midem helps you grow your business internationally, providing you with the opportunity to reinforce and forge business connections all around the world, enable international music promotion and sign deals.

Why come to Midem?

With four days of music conferences, competitions and networking events, Midem is the leading business event for the international music industry.

Midem provides the opportunity to make significant business connections, learn how to promote music internationally, source talent and get inspired by upcoming trends in musicCarry on networking in the Online Database and join us next year from 5-8 June 2018!

http://www.midem.com

BUILDING A BRAND: GET THE FOUNDATIONS RIGHT

I think that branding, and getting it right, is important to an organizations long term success. I believe that brand values are important and should act as a foundation on which you not only build the rest of your branding, but should also inform employee behavior and mindsets. And you’ll also be aware that one of the major failings I see in most brands is not delivering on their brand promise. Building a brand has to take these two elements into consideration.

But how do you go from those two basic pillars to fashioning a complete brand?

There’s no short cut. It takes a lot of thinking, analysis, hard work and a bit of intuition. Sure you can knock up a logo and a color palette in a few hours and slap it on your stationery, but that isn't a brand. It’s part of it, but not the whole picture. And if you've done it in a couple of hours it’s probably going to be pretty generic.

In this series of articles I’m going to look at the way Organic goes about building a brand for its customers. I’m not saying this is the only way to tackle brand design, but it’s the way I do it and it makes sense. I make no claims for originality in approach either; this is very much a case of standing on the shoulders of giants.

For this installment we’ll look at the three basic layers of brand design, and in subsequent posts we’ll delve a little deeper into each.

WHAT DOES YOUR BRAND VALUE?

This is where I believe all brand design projects should start, and that goes for building from scratch or refreshing an existing brand.

Why?

Because your values drive your behavior, and if you want customers to have an experience that is as positive as it can be then your values and behavior must be congruent.

Deciding on your brand values sounds simple, and most people will be able to rattle off a few words that they think encapsulate their business:

• Professional
• Driven
• Adventurous
• Blah
• Blah
• Blah

And the list goes on. The problem arises when people get lost focusing on values that are, really, aspirational and not ones that actually reflect the state of their business and how it operates. These values are usually the big ticket ones that sound impressive, and offer the customer the moon on a stick. Which is why they can come unstuck and negatively impact your brand.

Think about it. If a brand chooses a value such as ‘innovative’ it sounds great, and who wouldn't want to engage with an innovative brand. Problem is if you’re not actually innovative then you have a disconnect that can affect staff morale, because they quickly realize you aren't innovative and then feel like a bunch of shills. And it also negatively impacts customer relationships, because they’re expecting innovation and what you’re serving up is more of the same.

SHAPING YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY

Brands do have personalities, and the best have a brand personality that is consistent and identifiable. This doesn’t mean you have to be like Innocent (who definitely do have a personality that is all their own). Your brand’s personality should reflect its values, the people who work within it, the service or product you provide, and should connect with your customers.

Your brand personality is founded on your values, and comes across most clearly in your tone of voice and choice of imagery. So nailing down the persona of your brand, usually in a broad archetype at first, is an important stage in building a brand.

Once you have your brand personality defined, you can use that and other factors to build up a tone of voice. How we talk, the words we use and how we use them, play a major part in how people perceive our personality, and it’s the same for brands.

But words are just words, and the actions of your brand will also define its personality. So thinking carefully about how your personality is put into action by your people is crucial. We’ll explore brand personality more in a later post in this series.

CREATING A BRAND IDENTITY

So we’ve built the core of our brand, layered on top a personality and tone of voice, now we get to the part of branding that most people think is a brand: the brand identity. We’re talking name, logo, strapline, colour palettes. All that glossy, sexy stuff.

Creating a brand identity takes real skill and a fair bit of time. It’s also the place where we can get really creative with little hidden messages and foreshadowing of your brand values. You can see some great examples of logos that do a little bit more than look nice in this article by Ad Week.

Brand identity is important to future success because it is one of the most recognizable aspects of your business, and if well crafted it can stick in the mind of your audience.

Like everything else your visual identity should be informed by your brand values and personality. It should also take into account your industry, and hopefully do something a little different that makes it stand out. If you’re an accountancy firm then dark blues have a strong pull, making people feel safe and secure (especially nervous stakeholders). But how will you stand out if you’re just another navy blue logo?

When building a brand identity it’s important to think about how it will work at all scales, from a business card, to your website, to the side of a truck, or a massive billboard. I’ll stress again that each element must relate back to the core of your brand. If it doesn't then it isn't helping you create a cohesive brand that gives customers a unified experience from initial contact through to purchase and beyond.

These are the foundational elements that need consideration when building a brand. They are, of course, equally valid for doing a brand refresh but they can take potentially more work to achieve because you have to try and change ingrained assumptions and beliefs about the brand.

But knowing the components is all well and good. How do you actually go about uncovering and creating these elements? That’s one of the creative services we offer at Organic, but over the next few articles I will give a you a glimpse of what goes into building a brand from the ground up.

Getting your music sponsored

So you want to go on tour, but you don’t have the cash or the resources to put on the stellar performance you know you are capable of? Well consider getting sponsored, so someone else can foot the bill while you concentrate on what’s most important – the music.

Go corporate

Approach local companies and present yourself and your band as a good representation of  local talent and establish with the firm that you can represent them creatively through your music. Let’s say your newest album’s name is “Black Electricity” and you have a song under the same title on the album, a good idea would be to make a proposal towards the local electrical company which states that your new single can be used as a great marketing tool for their company and can also be a great representation of their support for local music/talent. Large companies are always seeking out ways to connect with the local market and they often do so through their support of local development which often times includes the sponsorship of local music.

Governmental sponsorship

Is your music genre native to your country? Do you play any instruments in your band that originated from your country?. Then you may have an extra edge in getting sponsored by your government. Like corporations, governmental agencies like to show their support for local development, however,unlike corporations, most governments see local development as a priority and therefore, reserve special funding for such projects, which more often than not includes governmental sponsorship of local music. If you or your band fit the criteria above, you may have more of a chance of being sponsored for tours to various competitions as a representative of your country’s musical talent regionally or even worldwide!

Use Your Networks

Did you run track in high school? Do you do tattoo art at a local tattoo shop on the side? or maybe you work part-time at a local restaurant? You may be asking, well what does that have to do with your music? Well, the answer is….. everything! People usually like to look out for the people on their team so if you approach the people you know and interact with on a daily basis for sponsorship, they are more likely to give it to you rather than a stranger you have never met before. So you may say, well that was back in high school, why would they care? Well, think about how great the press would be for your high school track team, if “one of their very own” was selling out shows locally, regionally or even internationally, if you proposition your networks to sponsor you on the basis of how much good press it will bring to their track team, their tattoo shop or their restaurant, they will more likely than not help you financially with your musical endeavors.

END NOTE: Always remember, no matter who you are approaching for sponsorship, you should always ask yourself beforehand….if I were them, what is the benefit of sponsoring me? Always take a business minded approach when seeking out sponsorship, meaning, always keep in mind that their main goal is more profit, so any idea you are pitching to a company you are seeking sponsorship from should be centered around this fact. Also, keep your mind open, just because you are a musician/singer etc. doesn’t mean you should only seek sponsorship from a music related business/company, as the first example explains, you can approach even the local electricity company if you wanted, you simply have the job of explaining why they need you.