Africa Unsigned

Africa Unsigned is an online movement that will take African music to a whole new level by linking fans directly to musicians and leveraging those relationships for the creation of new, well recorded, African music. We do so by empowering unsigned African artists to record music funded by fans.

African artists make money with their music on a sustainable level - African music becomes mainstream and has an impact on the western music industry

Music fans browse through artists on AfricaUnsigned. com. When they find artists they like, they can invest in the artist’s music with increments of $5,-. When $10,000 is reached the budget is used to make a professional recording. The music is distributed to the fans who backed the artist and sold on all major online stores (incl. Amazon & iTunes). All income is shared between the artists and the music fans who backed the artist.

Our partners in Senegal, Kenya, South Africa and Mali will scout African artists and producers who have shown drive and talent but are yet to gain traction in the (inter)national music market. They will give them access to recording facilities and Internet. Global and local teams will promote the artists
online as well as offline to attract music fans who can invest directly in their favorite unsigned artists.

We will target three main markets. The digital music market, the
charitable crowdfunding market and the African Diaspora in the West. The digital music download market is now worth 3 billion dollars (IFPI, 2009). The most important charitable crowdfunding services generated close to 80 million dollars of investment in the past 3 years (Kiva/MYC4). The African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere amounts to 169 million people (African Union).

Our main competitor is our technical partner SellaBand.com. SellaBand works with a similar concept and operates with Western bands to target music fans in Europe and the USA. There are several copycats of the concept, only two have realized considerable success: My Major Company in France and Slice The Pie in the UK. The African music market is dominated by a large number of small independent labels, mostly producers who act as record labels.

The Africa Unsigned project taps into the abundance of talent and cultural diversity in Africa that is neglected by the traditional music industry and has a first movers advantage in Africa.

The concept behind Africa Unsigned has been recognized as highly innovative. Sellaband won the Accenture Innovation Awards in 2007, nominated for the Dutch Van Speijkprijs 2007 for innovation, nominated for the BT Digital Award 2008, featured in Wired Magazine’s top 10 of coolest music sites. Dutch Council for Culture mentioned Sellaband in an advise to Minister Plasterk as an example of creative alternatives on the edge of culture and society.

Word of mouth marketing, targeting local markets with promotion teams, endorsement by key players from the industry activating the community and promoting artists who have reached their recording budgets. The artists’ achievements and the innovative and social character of the concept will unleash free publicity in traditional and new media to create traction and brand awareness for Africa Unsigned.

Pim Betist is an experienced entrepreneur in the web 2.0 music sector. He founded SellaBand in 2006. He was nominated direct marketing man of the year in 2008. The rest of the management team consists of Pieter Jos Van Kampen and Daan Determeijer. Pieter Jos Van Kampen has 8 years of experience in Africa as managing director of UpToYouToo. Daan Determeijer has seven years of experience as a multi media manager at Dutch broadcaster, VPRO.

The management team has partnered with Niyel, based in Dakar, Senegal. The agency provides links for production and distribution of artistic products in Senegal and Mali. For the production work in Kenya the team partnered with Penya in Nairobi, who produced an album with 38 rappers from Nairobi, generating a lot of media attention in Europe and the USA. The last partner is Matchboxology, a creative incubator in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Africa Unsigned will require full time dedication from all of the management team members and partners.

Africa Unsigned creates a parallel system between bands and fans that is beneficial to the African music industry as a whole. The investments are locked in at the start and most vital part of the value chain. They impact the African artists, producers and studios. Moreover copyright associations, managers, lawyers, publishers and labels will gain work from the new music that is created.