How Global Citizen’s Decade-Long Platforms Put African Music on the World Stage

On the 29th of September successful 2012, implicit 60,000 radical gathered astatine Central Park, New York, for the Global Citizen Festival. It was the archetypal festival to instrumentality a trademark exemplary wherever attendees earned escaped tickets by taking actions to combat poverty. To ticker their favourite bands and artists similar Neil Young, The Black Keys, K’Naan, John Legend and others, each they had to bash was implicit campaigns specified arsenic signing petitions and sharing information. The effect was implicit $1.3 cardinal successful commitments to extremity utmost poverty, malaria and polio. The festival marked the opening of Global Citizen’s yearly contented of establishing euphony festivals arsenic engines for societal change.

From the archetypal festival successful 2012, Global Citizen realised that euphony could beryllium a catalyst for societal alteration astir the world, including the African continent. African artists became portion of Global Citizen’s euphony initiatives, connecting the continent’s euphony with millions of fans worldwide and showcasing Africa’s astir dynamic endowment alongside the world’s biggest acts.

“Global Citizen has helped displacement African euphony from ’emerging’ to undeniably global, transforming artists from determination stars into household names and redefining Africa arsenic a operator of planetary popular culture, not conscionable a participant,” Iphie Chuks-Adizue, the Africa Managing Director astatine Global Citizen, says.

For implicit a decade, Global Citizen has been committed to showcasing endowment from Africa to the world. From the inaugural 2012 festival, wherever Somali-Canadian creator K’Naan performed successful New York City’s Central Park, to the landmark Mandela 100 Festival successful Johannesburg successful 2018, and the 2022 Global Citizen Festival successful Accra, African artists person stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s biggest stars. Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, SZA and Usher person shared lineups with Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Stonebwoy, Davidoo, Sarkodie and others.

“These flagship moments forced festivals, promoters and grounds labels to instrumentality notice, showing that African artists tin headline, gully monolithic audiences and inclination globally,” Iphie says. That visibility has besides shifted the planetary cognition of Africa itself. Afrobeats and Amapiano are nary longer niche sounds but pillars of mainstream pop, soundtracking clubs, festivals and charts worldwide.

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