Sony Music West Africa partners with WatsUp TV

An affiliate label of international music company Sony Music Entertainment, SMWA, whose base of operations is in Lagos, Nigeria, was set up to “represent, connect and promote the culture of authentic African music to global consciousness.”

The move comes a month after a delegation from Sony travelled to Ghana as part of a scouting and partnership exercise. It also forms part of WatsUp TV’s efforts to solidify the prominence of artists on the continent and promote them to new global audiences.

“A key component of our operations as a music company is storytelling and we are confident in WatsUp TV’s ability to help us achieve this objective by reason of their influential status in pan-African entertainment and the many products and networks they have established to support the function of informing audiences far and wide,” SMWA head of public relations Jim Donnett said.

“It is popular knowledge that West Africa houses some of the biggest and best universal talents. Irrespective of such a worthy feat, the greatest challenge still remains having to break in both locally and otherwise, and also maintain market focus. Sony Music is bringing her experiential knowledge of the music business to bridge the gap in community practice between the grassroots and overseas.

”We are implementing systems in coalition with regulatory bodies, DSPs, telcos, people in fintech, the media, to propound solutions that will contribute to changing the behaviour and pattern of response to product creation, marketing and consumption using home-derived formulas.”

WatsUp TV CEO Abd Traore said the deal would further his outfit’s vision to market and distribute pan-African music content on and beyond the shores of Africa.

SMWA currently offers promotional, management and product distribution services for an elite roster of artists including superstars Davido and Wizkid, as well as fast-rising names like Kiddominant, T-Classic, Ona Dema and Shun Breezy.