Airtel, Trace Unveil Music Contest For 13 African Countries

‎Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications service provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, has today partnered with TRACE Music Star and global recording icon Akon to roll out the largest mobile musical competition in Africa.

Dubbed Airtel TRACE Music Star, the competition will be rolled out across 13 Countries in francophone and anglophone Africa where Airtel has a presence (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Gabon).

Specifically, Airtel Nigeria is partnering with Trace, an International music video channel, to launch the unique mobile song contest, designed to empower Nigerian youths and create robust platforms for them to achieve their aspirations.

The competition tagged ‘Airtel Trace Music Star’ is a mobile song contest which will allow contestants to audition right from their phones and earn a chance of becoming the next big music star in Nigeria.

Contestants can participate by simply recording their song with an Airtel line, using a short code and will be aided by an interactive voice prompt.

The interactive voice prompt will be fortified with multi-lingual functionality including English and Pidgin which will assist in eliminating any language barrier and will enable youths from all parts of across Nigeria participate in the competition

Speaking on the initiative, Maurice Newa, chief commercial officer, Airtel Nigeria, noted that Airtel as a youth-centric telecoms company will be initiating the ‘Airtel Trace Music Star’ platform to empower Nigerian youths by giving  them opportunities to develop their innate skills and achieve their dreams.

He said: “Airtel is delighted to be associated with Trace in bringing excitement and providing entertainment opportunities for our teeming customers especially youths and the music lovers. This initiative is geared towards supporting and nurturing talents of Nigerian youth. In the next few weeks we will unveil the biggest platform for Nigerians to express their singing talent through their mobile phones from the comfort of any location they choose.

Olivier Laouchez, co-Founder, chairman and CEO of Trace Group, sees the collaboration as a perfect opportunity to showcase African youth talent to the rest of the world.

According to him, “We are tremendously excited about this pan African partnership with Airtel. Trace is dedicated to African youth and this ground breaking competition is a great step towards our joint goal of empowering African youth”.

As a pan-African initiative, the Airtel Trace Music competition is designed to hold simultaneously in other African countries where Airtel operates.

The winners from each participating country will then compete in a televised pan-African grand finale where the African champion will win a trip to the USA to be mentored by megastar Akon in addition to a professional music video and a record deal with Universal Music.

Airtel Nigeria has been in the forefront of empowering Nigerian youths through various credible platforms with the sponsorship of top entertainment and talent-hunt projects such as Nigeria’s Got Talent, which has provided opportunities for thousands of youths to take their skills to the next level.

The Telco also recently initiated another music talent show tagged ‘Airtel One Mic’ with the aim of discovering young talents in tertiary institutions across Nigeria.

Another robust platform created by Airtel Nigeria to empower youth is the yearly Airtel Rising Stars championship which was conceived to discover youths, both male and female, with football talent across Nigeria.

Trace, an international media group has deep African roots and is a major promoter of African music to the rest of the world.

It runs five music TV channels across Africa and currently, it airs videos by numerous A list African artistes in 160 countries globally through its network of music and sports celebrity TV channels. Trace Urban is available on DSTV Channel 322, while Trace Sports Stars is currently available on DSTV channel 188.