Mr Eazi, a Nigerian Afropop star real name Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade yesterday in a mini-ceremony officially unveiled the “EmPawa” project that will empower 100 musicians on the continent of Africa annually with an investment fund of $300,000 for the next three years.
The entrepreneur cum artiste said he got the drive to start this project which seeks to shed the spotlight on some of Africa’s very talented but unsung artistes from his tweet trying to recruit some up and coming musicians to invest in as his way of giving back and lending a helping hand to up and coming artistes on the continent.
“Early this year, I put a tweet saying I wanted to help emerging artistes and attached an email where they could send their songs. In under 30 minutes, I had already received 4000 emails from various talented individuals across Africa who were sending in their songs. These were just too many and I could not go through all these emails, and that is how this program came up.” Shared by Mr. Eazi at the launch.
To be a part of the initiative, an interested art is required to make an upload of a video of himself doing his/her thing online via Instagram to be considered and evaluated by a team of industry experts who are dotted across the countries the program will run in Africa.
Mr Eazi and his team will then pick 100 artists who will each receive a grant, videos uploaded on Mr. Eazi’s YouTube channel and the emPawa social media platforms with a social media budget for each. From the 100 artists, 10 will be specially selected to undergo mentor-ship in an incubator program enlightening them on how to grow their brands, export and monetize their music.
The emPawa will receive funding from betpawa, the first company to pledge support for the initiative and there will also be some industry people who will help keep the program running. The program as said by Mr. Eazi is not to sign and cage artiste but to invest in them, teach them, grow their brand, but stays as an individual artiste who can be signed to any record label who has an interest.
