Open call: African music for film, TV and ads

Seven Seas Music is a socially responsible US-based music licensing company with a mission of representing international artists with the highest integrity and to help media creators source culturally diverse sounds. Its clients include Netflix, HBO, Disney, Amazon Prime, VICE, NBC, CBS and ESPN. The company has recently placed music in US TV series such as Ted Lasso, What We Do in the Shadows, Vice Investigates, NCIS, Snowfall, XO Kitty, Outer Banks, and many more.

Seven Seas is now looking to increase its African music content catalogue and is seeking submissions from all manner of African music creators.  

Once a song is placed in a show, more than half of the fee is paid directly to the artist.

What Seven Seas is looking for

The company is seeking a diverse range of musical styles in all languages, not just English, including, but not limited, to:

• Afrobeat
• Afrobeats
• Highlife
• Dancehall
• Reggaeton
• Gqom
• Soukous
• Bongo flava
• Amapiano
• Mbalax
• Rai

How to submit your music

Submit your songs to musicsubmissions@sevenseasmusic.com for consideration, ensuring that both the publishing and master are controlled by you or your team (not Warner, Universal or Sony).

NOTE: If chosen, Seven Seas will ask you to sign a non-exclusive contribution agreement, which outlines the actual songs you would like the company to pitch for placement.

The key terms include:

• Non-exclusive.
• Terminable at will.
• If placed, the licence fee will be 50/50, and rightsholders collect 100% of any backend performance royalties.

Submit the following information in one email to musicsubmissions@sevenseasmusic.com:

• Your legal name and your artist name (if different).
• A brief sentence or two explaining who you are.
• A streaming link and/or download link to your music (Disco.ac, Dropbox, Google Drive, Hightail, or a zip folder from your computer as an attachment).
• If you have a website or any additional information about yourself (such as an electronic press kit), send Seven Seas the link.

Once accepted, Seven Seas will ask for the following:

• Song format: Artist Name – Song Title
• WAV and MP3s of your songs (Audacity is a free open-source app that can convert file types).
• All music in a folder by release and send access to the folder (please do not send multiple song files in multiple emails).
• If you have the accompanying instrumental versions, please include them.
• A filled-out metadata sheet with the writer information for your songs (example song included in the template):
  • If there is no publisher, you can just include ‘copyright controlled’, which means the writer controls the publishing.
  • If there is no label, you can just include ‘self-released’.
• Include the lyric sheets for songs with vocals.

For queries and more information, email musicsubmissions@sevenseasmusic.com.

Find out more about Seven Seas Music here.