Today Sony Music Entertainment announced their 2nd major artist signing in Africa with East African act Alikiba.
There was much excitement in African and European Afrobeat music circles last year when Sony announced their first African major label signing: West African act Davido, from Nigeria, and that excitement will peak again with Alikiba. Several major pan-African media outlets attended to capture the announcement, including major Pan-African Broadcasters MTV, SoundCity, Trace TV, Channel O, EATV, and Clouds.
Alikiba flew in from Tanzania to South Africa and was followed by a dedicated film crew who are documenting his story as frenzied fans and reporters captured the moment.
Alikiba talked to a very exclusive intimate audience through his beginnings, his life, his inspirations as an artist, his successes, and introduced a video about the “making of and behind-the-scenes” of his new single and music video, building up to a personal listening session of his latest single “AJE.”
Alikiba is a superstar across East Africa and vast parts of the African continent, and is widely known as ‘The King of Bongo Flava.” His hashtag, #KingKiba, is a weekly trend across various African countries, and has been for the past few years.
Sean Watson, Managing Director of Sony Music Entertainment Africa says of the development:
Sony Music Entertainment recently announced several key strategic steps that we’d taken in Africa including new operations in Nigeria and the signing of high profile West African artists. We also mentioned that we’d be making similar inroads in East Africa. Well here we are, at the dawn of our East African journey and who better to start it with than an artist of the stature of Alikiba. We’re very proud of being able to partner with such a talented individual and can’t wait to get started on sharing his music with his fans all over the world.
Alikiba had this to say:
My partnership with Sony Music in addition to my already very successful partnership with my management team at ROCKSTAR4000 now completes the team, and solidifies the most powerful proposition and team to take my music to even greater heights, to new audiences and fans across borders and across the world. I’m really excited in the future of music from the African continent as its now the time for the amazing music and sounds from Africa to take over the world, and I’m excited on where this amazing partnership will be able to take my music now to fans across the continent and across the planet.
His first single, “AJE”, will be released through Sony Music Entertainment Africa.