On this new episode of The Wave we will be discussing how Africa’s music industry is taking off, after exploding on dance floors across the world, how Afrobeats – the exciting sound emerging from West Africa – has entered global music’s consciousness and most importantly how to develop a strong market at home. Host Charlotte Bwana, head of Business Development & Media Partnerships for Audiomack in Africa, an American youth-driven, artist-first music streaming platform that provides artists with a platform to effortlessly share their music with the world Speakers: Franck Alcide-Kacou is Franco-Ivorian and heads Universal Music Africa. He also recently launched Def Jam Africa. Popularly known as “Black Kent”, he was a singer songwriter and rapper prior to joining Universal. Valentine Gaudin is the managing director of Trace Southern Africa. With over 10 years of experience in the entertainment and television industry, Valentine is in charge of driving the strategies for the TRACE operations in Anglophone & Lusophone Africa (marketing, communication, digital platforms, sales, TV channels and programming). Ladipoe : Nigerian singer, songwriter and rapper. He rose to prominence with the release of the songs “Feel Alright”, on which he was featured by SDC ‘Show Dem Camp’, “Are you down?” in 2018 featuring Tiwa Savage. He was the first rapper to be signed to Don Jazzy’s Mavin records. During the COVID19 locked down in 2020, Ladipoe went ahead to drop his hit single “Know you” featuring Nigerian singer Simi, that became an internet sensation on social media and won a Headie award just three days ago.