The South by South West Festival (SXSW) is easily one of the biggest media festivals in the world. It is also well known for discovering new musical acts and cross pollinating the work of these artists to music and culture audiences across the world. As such it is a huge privilege to be invited to perform at one of SXSW’s stages, especially if you are a Nigerian.

Afrobeats has pretty much infiltrated all aspects of popular music in the last few years. And now, the international music media market is creating spaces for African acts (and by extension their core audiences) to be a part of these massive platforms. This year’s SXSW will host 105 new music acts, many of whom are performing on their stages for the first time. Among the neophytes making their debuts is Nigerian pop star Yemi Alade who has conquered Francophone Africa and much of Europe, Bez Idakula whose comeback album Light reaffirmed his positions as one of the continent’s best guitarists and Ghanaian super group La Meme Gang, whose individual members have massive audiences and a bad boy aesthetic as a group that many are trying and failing to emulate.

They will represent the motherland in a 60 country wide extravaganza that also features  Aerial, Andre Davis Jr, Atlas Maior, Blood, Dustin Welch, Elijah Ford, Ella Ella, Gina Chavez, Jon Muq, Kept Male, Las Valentinas, Löwin, Nané, Patricia Vonne, Reginald DeVore and others.

Congratulations to all of them and we hope they kill it. SXSW will hold from the 13th to the 22nd of March 2020.