ACCES 2023 curation committee announced

The curation committee will be responsible for selecting the musical artists who will showcase at ACCES 2023, as well as providing advice on the broader ACCES programme.

The six-member committee is made up of leading music industry players from across the African continent, including Sauti za Busara festival manager Journey Ramadhan (Tanzania), Ongala Music Festival founder Aziza Ongala (Tanzania), music writer Shiba Mazaza (South Africa), Sakifo Musik Festival founder Jerome Galabert (Reunion Island), DJ, lecturer and writer Kobby Graham (Ghana) and Music In Africa Foundation director Eddie Hatitye (South Africa).

The 2023 curation committee members are regarded as some of Africa’s most influential music industry professionals and will use their vast knowledge to select the artists who will showcase in front of festival curators, promoters, booking agents and record label executives.

ACCES 2023 will be the sixth in the history of the event, which takes place in a different African city almost every year. In 2017, the inaugural ACCES was held in Dakar, Senegal. In 2018, the conference went to Nairobi, Kenya, and a year later to Accra where hundreds of delegates from across Africa and around the world converged on the Ghanaian capital for three action-packed days of networking, exhibitions, presentations, workshops, showcases and panel discussions. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 event, which was scheduled for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2021, Johannesburg, South Africa. was the host city for the event, followed by Dar es Salaam in 2022.

The announcement of the 2023 curation committee comes after ACCES made an open call to African artists who want to perform at the conference. The open call’s deadline is 30 April and the curation committee will get to work immediately afterwards to pick out the showcasing talent. The committee will be working according to previously set-out criteria based on, among others, gender, genre and country balance, and musical originality.

About ACCES

The Music In Africa Conference for Collaborations, Exchange and Showcases, or simply ACCES, is an annual music conference that hosts industry players from across the African continent and around the world. ACCES 2023 will be held in Dar es Salaam from 9 to 11 November and will see music professionals gather in the Tanzanian capital to exchange ideas, discover new talent and accelerate the shaping of the music sector on the continent. The conference will offer training workshops, panel discussions, presentations, networking sessions, exhibitions, showcases, concerts and visits to key music industry hubs in the Tanzanian city.

ACCES is organised by the Music In Africa Foundation, a non-profit and pan-African organisation, in partnership with Siemens Stiftung and Goethe-Institut.

For more information about the conference, visit the official ACCES website.