Benjamin Lebrave

Benjamin Lebrave is a French and American music entrepreneur and curator based in Accra, Ghana. In the past decade, he and his label Akwaaba Music have relentlessly connected African artists with the world, shedding light on entire scenes and countries.

Lebrave was born and raised in Paris, where he graduated from the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE - Paris Tech), with a degree in statistics and economics. Upon graduation in 2003 Lebrave took a sharp turn to follow his passion, which brought him to Los Angeles where he worked as an agent for French labels and artists.

In LA Lebrave also became a popular DJ, sought after for his uniquely eclectic music range. These crucial years allowed Lebrave to fine-tune his curation and understanding of people’s musical taste.

Lebrave’s access to top quality French labels and repertoire landed him a position as business development manager at the Digital Music Group in San Francisco in 2006, a boutique digital music distributor, where he was responsible for content acquisition and platform partnerships.

In San Francisco, Lebrave discovered current African sounds, such as kuduro from Angola or hiplife from Ghana. Combining his knowledge of distribution with his knack for DJing and curation, he set off to found an outlet specialized in these new African genres: Akwaaba Music was born in 2008.

The label has tirelessly pushed sounds which had been vastly unavailable, first by bridging the distribution gap. Since moving to Accra in 2011, Lebrave has greatly diversified the label’s range of services, opening a studio, a publishing company, providing bookings to artists and DJs, hosting workshops, producing events: at home in Accra and throughout the continent, Lebrave has become a trusted partner and influential mentor for artists and music professionals alike, in particular for those focusing on innovative sounds.

Outside Africa, Lebrave and Akwaaba is considered a crucial link to the burgeoning scenes popping up across the continent, feeding media outlets and live music circuits with the next generations of artists emerging from the continent.