Last Thursday, at the iconic Troxy venue in East London, Temilade Openiyi took the stage as the inaugural artist to perform at Billboard’s The Stage, held for the first time in London, where music, film, and technology merged at SXSW.  As she entertained the excited crowd with sure-fire favourites like “Burning, “Ice Tea, and “Love Me Jeje,” it was the perfect accompaniment to the night before where the singer and producer had been recognised for the Diamond Award at Billboard’s Global Power Players as a true embodiment of some of the most vital cultural conversations right now.

In a little under six years, Tems has risen from a bright upstart singing in small rooms to a Girl on Fire, who is inching beyond household name status. She has carved out her own space in Nigerian Pop’s crowded corner with her honest and introspective music. The singer has also edged closer to global superstardom and found success in many ways, from bagging Grammy awards and Oscar nods to becoming the first African artist to hold ownership stakes in a Major League Soccer team. Each accolade has brought Tems closer to this moment, where she ushers in a new arc for Billboard as a business and a cultural powerhouse.

Tems’ recognition with Billboard’s Diamond Award was even more momentous, given that she was welcomed into the Global Power Players hall of fame by Nkosyati Khumalo, the newly announced Editor-in-Chief of Billboard Africa, the regional-focused music platform formed in collaboration with Global Venture Partners. “We’ve seen how many African artists have made history on those charts worldwide already. I think it’s a great moment to bring some of that home and not just celebrate in New York or LA or London, but to celebrate it right at home in Cape Town, in Lagos, in Accra,” Khumalo said in a chat with The NATIVE a few hours before the iconic platform announced its entry into its 16th market. “I think we know how powerful music from Africa is, and it’s nice to see it outside, but it’s also nice to celebrate it at home.”

Through Billboard Africa, the media conglomerate will introduce its world-class editorial content, music charts, awards, videos, interviews, and exclusive events on the continent, showcasing and projecting the power and diversity of African music to a global audience. It will mark its expansion into the African market with its headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana–a detail that is based on a nuanced and intentional approach to show up on the continent ready to learn, partner, and grow the music ecosystem for both artists, record labels, fans, and music industry professionals. 

While its central base will spring from Botswana’s rich economic climate, the Billboard Africa team says that there will be a regional presence in major cities around Africa. “We need to look at it from a future standpoint, as it pertains to what markets were important for us to want to emulate,” said Billboard Africa managing director, Josh Wilson.“If you look at a place like Botswana with 2.5 million people, its citizens have free healthcare, free education, and free land. These things are important for us to look at. The economic safety, stability, and freedoms were key. So, whether that is a market like Rwanda or Botswana, there are markets that have these elements that truly stand out.”

Each aspect of  Billboard’s expansion into Africa was intentional. From partnering with Tems and showcasing rising Batswana talent like Amantle Brown and British-Nigerian singer LULU in London, itself a cultural melting pot, to aligning with a global opportunity like Power Players, which celebrated the best talent working behind the scenes in the music industry. Mike Van, the CEO of Billboard, echoes this sentiment, reiterating that the entire team approached the launch with absolute care, paying attention to strike a balanced representation of both diaspora audiences and listeners back at home. “We are also intentional about laying the proper groundwork in helping the African music industry, helping the infrastructure of it to be built. We intend to be a very foundational pillar to that.”

Taking on the arduous task of representing an entire continent of 54 distinct nations in language, culture, and expressions is no easy feat. Accurate representation is crucial to gaining the trust of audiences, and Billboard Africa is keen to understand the way our culture, dialect, values, and heritage shape us and the music we create. Khumalo believes that these hybrid expressions of culture are the sweet spot when telling truly representative stories. “There’s the kind of third culture element of an artist from one culture living somewhere else and existing at the hybrid,” he explained. “I think a lot of that will also be told through the charts, where, as we have the opportunity to expand those and to also dig into genres and educate the rest of the world about some of these genres that exist, that are also hybrids of various things, and also have deep cultural roots across countries and within countries, but also cross-continentally.”

Given this context, it’s easy to see how Billboard’s methodological approach to its music charts works and how it intends to replicate that formula in Africa. Billboard’s global charts are based on an industry-wide accepted standard collated in partnership with Luminate, which ingests and verifies data from all major labels, DSPs, sales, and hard copies since its first chart was launched in 1940. “We plan to take that credibility, that authenticity, that worldwide acceptance of the validity of our data and our charts, through Africa as well,” says Van about his team’s approach. “I naturally understand that there is scepticism by those local audiences or those local teams and businesses of people within the continent in terms of how are we going to show up?”

While Billboard is already building music data in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, this begins to trail off once it gets to smaller markets on the continent. The plan is to now bring this same value proposition to more countries, artists, labels, and even more music fans. “This is not just about starting a publication for us,” says Wilson. “It’s about creating an ecosystem of growth and development in the music industry. So, charts and data, you’ve got to think about them as a value chain as part of the ecosystem. This is about growing an industry to make sure that we’re growing that commercially, as well as making sure that we are informing the public at large.”

All of this boils down to the pan-African vision of boosting a diverse, omnivorous, but comprehensive and collaborative ecosystem.  “I think it’s important to mention that as a single market, you look at Africa, we’re the sixth or seventh biggest market in the world,” says Wilson. “When we look at the music industry and with these charts, that’s what we can start to create, is looking at more as a single market rather than a divided market.”  Billboard aims to create reservoirs of knowledge about music emerging from every part of the continent, providing contextual information to guide artists, labels, and fans. “We’re not trying to promote one person over another or one country over another, by any means,” Khumalo adds. “If we can come in with an independent platform, that also levels the playing field in a lot of ways and makes that data available on many different fronts, from a commercial, cultural, and entertainment, and arts and culture perspective. Collaborators and brands and different industries that are looking to work with artists and new artists will have so much more visibility into who they are and what they’re about through a platform like this.”

This moment would not be possible without the decades of groundwork laid by African artists, teams, labels, and professionals who have helped bolster the industry to prosperity and boost its economic and cultural power. Indeed, reports show that Afropop and Afrobeats fans spend 121% more on music monthly than the average US listener, while genres like Afrobeats and Amapiano videos saw nearly four billion global views on Vevo in 2023, reflecting a 56% year-on-year increase in viewership. Now, Billboard Africa wants to help elevate, recognise, and build an infrastructure for sustainable growth. This will include a 13 million dollar investment into Botswana, including financial services for seamless payments and transfers, commercial residences, arenas, energy storage, research, and policy. “This is not just about the music, this is about the growth of the continent and also the recognition of the continent, and the collaboration of the continent,” says Wilson.

Ultimately, Billboard’s entry into Africa is one of recognition of the dynamic power of music on the continent and a desire to place local music communities at the heart of that expansion. In today’s fragmented news landscape, maintaining trust and authenticity is challenging for brands. Still, Billboard hopes to emerge as a credible source, leveraging its global authority to resonate with music lovers and power existing structures. “Live experiences are what Gen Z and Gen Alpha demand,” Van offers.“For us to leverage our proven business practices as well as our DNA to give fans, as well as the music industry, those kinds of live experiences that they expect, I think, is going to be a massive factor for us in terms of how we’re going to grow.”