On Wednesday 10 August 2022, Spotify hosted a Women’s Day Brunch to highlight EQUAL as one of the Spotify programmes intended to eliminate barriers for women in the music industry and to further acknowledge the growth that Spotify EQUAL Africa artists like Nomfundo Moh have forged for themselves. Sio was also announced as Spotify’s EQUAL Africa ambassador for August 2022.
Influencers, members of the media, and music industry stakeholders attended the event held at The Venue Green Park in Sandton.
Activities kicked off with Monica Kemoli-Savanne, Spotify’s East Africa artist and label partnerships manager, presenting EQUAL Africa data, which outlined EQUAL Africa artists’ streaming performance, playlist features, and artists featured on Spotify’s EQUAL Africa playlist. The data highlighted the 4.5 million streams that the EQUAL Africa playlist has so far amassed in 184 markets, the 9000 Spotify editorial playlists EQUAL Africa artists have been featured in, and the 8 billion global streams the EQUAL Africa artists featured on the playlist have received since the playlist was launched.
A panel discussion followed with Phiona Okumu, Nomfundo Moh, Angela Weickl, and Kim Sineke. The four women agreed that in order to re-write the women's narrative in the music industry and to make it more inclusive, education is important. They further shared that collaboration with key stakeholders and teams makes it easier for female artists to knock on doors and speed up the process of inclusivity.
Sio, who is due to release her album next week Friday, kicked off the performance line-up followed by Nomfundo Moh, another EQUAL Africa artist who performed an exclusive preview from her upcoming album due to be released this Friday.
Spotify’s mission remains to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving millions of artists the opportunity to live off their art.
“In short, we are here to partner with all of Africa’s music stakeholders to create value for the ecosystem. That includes all the much-needed work we do to bring female creators to the center of the conversation (via EQUAL Africa), our investment in the next generation of artists, educating and empowering artists with the tools and data to make the most of the opportunities to export their music and gain new audiences around the world” - Phiona Okumu, Spotify's head of music in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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