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Afrochella’s Rising Star Challenge competition partners with Sony Music Africa
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 21 November 2022
Afrochella promoter Culture Management Group and streaming service Audiomack have partnered with Sony Music to expand their existing Rising Star Challenge competition. Previously, winners were offered the chance to play the Afrochella festival in Ghana. Now they will also be offered global distribution deals and record contracts via the major.
The top winner will be given a one single record contract with Sony Music Africa, with marketing support and free access to Afrochella’s own recording studio.
That winner and five others will also be given the opportunity to perform on the Rising Star Stage at the next Afrochella festival at the end of next month. Up to ten winners from a shortlist of 25 will also be offered distribution deals.
“With the strong backing of Sony Music, we now have the exciting opportunity to make an artist’s dreams come to life by providing them with a distribution deal and sustainable resources to help jumpstart their musical career”, says Afrochella founder Abdul Karim-Abdullah.
Afrochella – which is set to take place on 28-29 Dec – is currently the subject of legal action from AEG’s Goldenvoice – the owner of the Californian music festival Coachella – which accuses the African event of trademark infringement by using ‘chella’ in its name.
The latest in a string of trademark lawsuits attempting to protect the Coachella name, this is the first launched against an event outside the US. Although it was the staging of Afrochella events within California that seemingly prompted legal action in the American courts.
The lawsuit filed in the US last month is accompanied by another being pursued by Goldenvoice in Ghana itself. That particular legal action was probably mainly prompted by the organisers of Afrochella not only seeking to register their own brand with the trademark registry in Ghana, but the Coachella and Chella brands too.
