Billboard Biz

Jan 24 2010

@MIDEM: South African Licensing Platform Unveiled

Cape Town-based Keevision used the MIDEM trade fair and conference to announce the launch of Africori, a business-to-business platform for licensing of African music.

The announcement was made in Cannes by Africori founder and CEO Yoel Kenan, a music industry and new media veteran (MP3.com, BMG, Universal Music) who believes his online platform will bring unparalleled ease of access to a pre-cleared catalog of around 2,000 tracks at present.

"Africori offers to all the musicians from the continent the opportunity to reach music users and licensors from around the world and generate revenues from the licensing of their music," says Kenan. "We have the ambition to become the one-stop-shop for all the music supervisors looking for original, pre-cleared music from Africa."

Kenan tells Billboard.Biz his main focus is to give Africa’s "amazingly talented" artists and songwriters the opportunity to promote their works to TV and film production companies, video games developers, advertising agencies and other licensors of music via a "world-class" digital platform.

Artists and labels already signed up with Africori include leading South African indies, such as Johannesburg-based African Cream Music and Cape Town-based African Dope Records as well as Zambia’s SlingBeats Entertainment.

Hilton "Roach" Roth, founder of African Dope, says, "For me, Africori is a great opportunity for African content owners and global music users who will be astounded by what the continent has to offer musically, but more importantly it’s exactly the kind of platform, filter and business model that is going to be required for African music to reach its market and thrive in the 21st century. I’m excited".

Kenan adds: "In today’s African environment, artists have very few opportunities to live from their music due to rampant piracy and a lack of business infrastructure. Africori aims to provide a sustainable model for independent artists across Africa while offering the same quality and respect for rights owners that could be found in developed countries. Africori will give creators the opportunity to gain new audiences and access new streams of revenues, without compromising on their rights and their art."