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US Based Record Company Sets Up West Africa Branch!

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

Tantrum Records has announced that it is establishing an operation in West Africa. Lagos, Nigeria precisely. Tantrum Records and its sister company Babyree are based in California USA and distributed through Universal Records, the world’s largest record company. Why this interest in West Africa, an area that has so far been ignored by all the major players in the music industry?

According to Sjoerd (Sjoko) Koppert, President and C.E.O. of Tantrum:

“I have followed the development of music, in particular Hip-Hop, in West Africa for many years, and we have some brilliant West African artists on our label in the USA. Since the majors have no presence in West Africa we were not able to distribute their music in West Africa.”

This is now changing, and Tantrum is soon to release their first project with CD’s produced and recorded at Tantrum’s California based studios, but manufactured in Nigeria.

Sjoko: “We had established a good relationship with Joice Ize-Iyamu’s Rouge Entertainment over the last three years, and decided that the relationship would form the bases for an innovative new approach to the music industry in West Africa. So, Joice’s company is going to partner with us. We are also appointing a top level West African business executive to oversee our business affairs in West Africa.”

Sjoko also emphasizes that releasing Tantrum’s artists in West Africa was by no means the only motive to set up Tantrum’s African operation. He believes that there is much talent in West Africa, talent capable of reaching International success.

“There is a lot more than meets the eye behind establishing a branch in West Africa for Tantrum. We do aim to find and develop local talent. Tantrum has the resources to help them break through Internationally. There is some brilliant music coming out of Africa at the moment, it is time it received recognition, and it is time the world gets to enjoy its uniqueness. It is time for Africa to gain its voice and be heard.”

Together with announcing its launch of a branch in West Africa, Tantrum is also starting another project, having African Hip-Hop recognized as its own genre in the music industry, Internationally. They are launching a global petition this month for this purpose. “If we raise sufficient names in support of this petition, the major companies involved in delivering digital content, like iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon as well as social networking sites like MySpace will have to add African Hip-Hop as its own category, which will make promoting the genre across the globe a lot easier.”

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Comments (2)

1. 14-05-2008 18:01

Love to know more

Hi,
I've got some songs written and would love to meet a producer or even a Record company to assist me since i dont have the finance to proceed on it.Would be glad to hear from you.
Regards

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2. 16-05-2008 20:01

good day

my passion nd luv 4 music started frm my mothers womb.i have over hundreds of songs not jst written but also in my head.i specialize in r&b nd im very gud at dancing(breakdance etc..).it would be a dream come true if u jst mke me ure boy.my no 08034472323 or+22997485489 or +22995082122

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