One Africa Music Fest: African artists disgraced in London

The UK edition of the One Africa Music Fest, which held its first edition a little under a year ago, was scheduled to start by 7pm local time on Saturday 13 May. Reports say the Wembley concert, which was hosted by R&B man Banky W, began more than an hour late.

Unfortunately for organisers Upfront and Personal, the show had pledged itself to a live broadcast via Tidal, the streaming service owned by US rapper Jay Z. The delay thus affected the broadcast. But that was only a part of the mess that eventually doomed the show.

One Africa Music Fest has with each edition invited a host of African stars, and the London edition was no different. This time 21 artists were announced as performers. Falz, Tiwa Savage, Tekno, Davido, MI Abaga, 9ice and other Nigerian stars were part of the line-up. From outside of Nigeria: Cassper Nyovest from South Africa, Awilo Longomba from the Congo and Ghana’s Sarkodie. Jidenna, who is based in the US, was also expected to perform.

Maybe the number and star power of these artists meant there was always going to be a problem with the logistics of performing times – if for nothing else then for the average pop star ego. With the constraint of the delay, a disaster was unavoidable. According to eyewitnesses, some of whom complained on social media, host Banky W got on stage to urge some of the performers to reduce their performance times.

Rosanwo, a Twitter user who attended the show, wrote: "Imagine Banky is on stage to chase Davido off. Shame!" Another tweet from the same handle: "Olamide on stage for less than 5 mins."

Along with the show’s late take-off, some artists lip-synced to their own songs, a notorious aspect of performances in Nigeria, which some attendees seemed to believe would change given the venue and significance of the event.

Perhaps part of the show's problem is that it hasn't been held accountable: foreign media are yet to produce adequate reports and reviews about the series of shows held under the One Africa Music Fest banner. Nigerian media do not even cover the concert because it's too expensive to do so.

The show was eventually cut short, some acts having performed too briefly and others not even getting on stage. Jidenna, who belonged to the latter group, recorded a video and shared it online. Trying not to blame anyone for the event's failure, he apologised for not performing, though not intentionally. “Apparently we ran out of time,” he said before adding, “If we truly believe it is our time as Africans, we have to be on time.”