Chocolate City and EbonyLife TV announce ‘Chocolate City Unsigned’

Chocolate City and EbonyLife TV have announced
a strategic partnership called ‘Chocolate City
Unsigned’, a genuine homegrown reality TV show
created to search for the next Africa’s biggest
music star, spearheaded by Chocolate City, one of
Africa's biggest indigenous record labels, and
EbonyLife TV, Africa’s first Global Black
Entertainment and Lifestyle network and
production powerhouse.
This project was announced at a press
conference held at The Wheatbaker
Hotel, Lagos on January 28, 2016, and
which had in attendance the Executive
Chairman and CEO of EbonyLife TV, Mo
Abudu; President of Chocolate City
Group, Audu Makori; CEO of Chocolate
City, Jude Abaga (M.I), as well as Victoria
Kimani, and other key Chocolate City
talents
Chocolate City Unsigned is set to be the
first ever indigenous pan-African talent
hunt show created with the sole aim of
discovering, developing and supporting
fresh artistes, giving them a platform to
showcase their skills, launching them
into a professional career of instant
music sensation, stardom and celebrity
status.
The EbonyLife TV and Chocolate City partnership
recognizes Africa as home to the highest
concentration of a rapidly growing, vibrant
and young class of people who have an
amazing penchant for the most
passionate and most fervent music
culture in the world; a rising creative
generation to watch and the next wave
of stars poised to take the African music
industry by storm.
In view of this, Chocolate City Unsigned
is a great opportunity for brands that
not only wish to gain a foothold with
Africa’s teeming new audiences, but who
also understand just how important
music is to these young target
demographic, and who therefore wish to
form stronger connections with them
while introducing their brands to them
through the new and innovative music
talent hunt property. Sponsors for the
show will be unveiled by the end of
March, 2016.
Registration for the
Chocolate City Unsigned
competition will be opened
to all interested
participants across
Africa on March 21, 2016 while the
competition proper is billed to
commence in Lagos, Nigeria, in May
2016.
Chocolate City Unsigned will be televised
on EbonyLife TV and other select TV
channels.
According to Audu Maikori, “ Chocolate
City Unsigned is set to bring in
something that no music reality TV has
ever had - artist discovery, developments
and support from a team that has done
so with some of Nigerians biggest
artistes. The competition is the first
indigenous music reality Television show
in Nigeria to discover new talents across
the African landscape.”
For Mo Abudu, whose movie production,
FIFTY , from the EbonyLife Films’ stable,
is highly successful today as one of the
longest-running cinema releases in
Nigeria’s film history, “Africa is
brimming with thousands of yet-to-be-
discovered singing talents and this
partnership of globally recognized
brands, EbonyLife TV and Chocolate
City, through Chocolate City Unsigned, is
poised to create a truly indigenous
platform that guarantees youths jobs for
life from a record label that understands
the African music scene more than
anyone else; one that knows how to
create stars and make them relevant to
the African market. We are greatly
excited about this platform, not only for
the African youth, but also for brands
that appreciate the power of an amazing
music property to connect with the
drivers of arguably the most vital
segment of the economy.”
For CEO of Chocolate City, M.I (Jude Abaga), “In
summary, Chocolate City Unsigned is about
creating stars. I’m a living proof of this exciting
reality and I and the team are now ready to take
others on this amazing journey to stardom.
Chocolate City have the recipe for
making music stars and EbonyLife TV
have the recipe for making TV stars. It’s
a partnership like none other. We both
create stars because we understand the
local nuances of making stars; we find
raw talent from nowhere and take them
right to the top. Chocolate City Unsigned
will do nothing less.”