<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ song “Unholy” earned the top spot on the&nbsp;Billboard&nbsp;Hot 100 on Monday after three weeks in the top ten, making them the first nonbinary and transgender artists, respectively, to rank No. 1 on the singles chart.



<h2>KEY FACTS</h2>



In the week ending October 20, “Unholy” received 25.3 million streams, 21.5 million radio airplay impressions and 19,000 downloads.&nbsp;



The song is the first No. 1 of either Smith’s or Petras’ careers, though Smith has been behind popular hits like “Stay With Me,” “I’m Not The Only One” and “Dancing With A Stranger.”&nbsp;



The song was released September 22 and debuted at No. 3 on the Hot 100, before ranking at No. 2 for the last two weeks.



“Unholy” has spent four weeks at No. 1 on the U.K. Official Charts, and four weeks as the top song on Spotify’s weekly global Top Songs chart.&nbsp;



Like many recent chart hits, “Unholy” is popular on TikTok, where over a million videos have been made to it.



<h2>TANGENT</h2>



With the release of the album&nbsp;It’s Only Me, rapper Lil Baby became the third artist in history to chart at least 25 songs on the Hot 100 simultaneously, following Drake, who in 2017 charted 27, and Taylor Swift, who charted 26 last year.&nbsp;



<h2>WHAT TO WATCH FOR&nbsp;</h2>



Swift’s new album&nbsp;Midnights&nbsp;was released Friday and became the most-streamed album on Spotify in a day. The work is largely expected to dominate next week’s chart.&nbsp;



<h2>BILLBOARD HOT 100 TOP 10 SINGLES</h2>



<ol><li>“Unholy,” Sam Smith and Kim Petras&nbsp;</li><li>“Bad Habit,” Steve Lacy</li><li>“As It Was,” Harry Styles</li><li>“California Breeze,” Lil Baby</li><li>“I Like You (A Happier Song),” Post Malone feat. Doja Cat</li><li>“I Ain’t Worried,” One Republic&nbsp;</li><li>“You Proof,” Morgan Wallen</li><li>“Forever,” Lil Baby feat. Fridayy</li><li>“Super Freaky Girl,” Nicki Minaj&nbsp;</li><li>“Real Spill,” Lil Baby</li></ol>



<h2>BILLBOARD 200 TOP FIVE ALBUMS</h2>



<ol><li>It’s Only Me, Lil Baby</li><li>Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny&nbsp;</li><li>Return of the Dream Canteen, Red Hot Chili Peppers&nbsp;</li><li>Dangerous: The Double Album,&nbsp;Morgan Wallen&nbsp;</li><li>The Highlights,&nbsp;The Weeknd&nbsp;</li></ol>



<h2>KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Smith’s debut album,&nbsp;In The Lonely Hour, was released in 2014. They have been nominated for six Grammys and have won four. Last week, Smith announced their fourth studio album&nbsp;Gloria&nbsp;will be released on January 27. Smith came out as nonbinary in 2019. Petras was born in Germany and appeared on talk shows when she was young to talk about her transgender identity. She started releasing music in 2008 and released her debut album,&nbsp;Clarity, in 2019.



<h2>FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/10/03/steve-lacys-bad-habit-ends-harry-styles-record-breaking-no-1-run-for-now/?sh=57d9e04d280a">Steve Lacy’s ‘Bad Habit’ Ends Harry Styles Record-Breaking No. 1 Run—For Now</a>



(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/09/26/harry-styles-parade-of-success-continues-with-a-record-breaking-week-on-billboard-chart/?sh=535bfc033714">Harry Styles’ Parade Of Success Continues With A Record-Breaking Week On Billboard Chart</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/09/19/tiktok-spurs-steve-lacys-bad-habit-toward-no-1-spot-on-billboard-charts-but-can-he-top-harry-styles/?sh=26754a1d1977">TikTok Spurs Steve Lacy’s ‘Bad Habit’ Toward No. 1 Spot On Billboard Charts—But Can He Top Harry Styles?</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Marisa Dellatto, Forbes Staff

2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival – Night 1 – Show

Sam Smith And Kim Petras Become First Openly Nonbinary And Trans Artists To Reach Billboard’s No. 1

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“But the business side, you have to learn about it…..we’re not born with that knowledge, you need to learn it.&#8221; <cite>Tiwa Savage, Award-Winning Nigerian singer</cite></blockquote>

Quote 1

Quote Of The Day

With&nbsp;F9&nbsp;racing past $500 million worldwide and likely looking at an over/under $160 million domestic cume, it would appear that the&nbsp;Fast &amp; Furious&nbsp;sequel is the latest big tentpole (alongside&nbsp;Godzilla Vs. Kong&nbsp;and&nbsp;A Quiet Place part II) to perform about as well as it might have in a non-Covid environment. It’s not an exact match, mind you, as maybe&nbsp;Godzilla Vs. Kong&nbsp;might have earned $115 million (just above&nbsp;Godzilla: King of the Monsters) while&nbsp;Quiet Place 2&nbsp;would have neared the $188 million cume of&nbsp;A Quiet Place, but it’s close enough that we can argue that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;might be in a position to be “judged” on non-Covid standards as it opens this weekend.



So, had it opened in May of 2020 sans a global pandemic as expected, what might we have expected to see? Well, the question is whether the Scarlett Johansson-led MCU prequel would have performed like&nbsp;Doctor Strange&nbsp;or&nbsp;Thor: Ragnarok. Consider this a truncated “pessimistic” and “optimistic” box office preview, the kind of thing I used to do with multiple posts three months out from a big movie’s theatrical release. Anyway, the “pessimistic” look would argue that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;was a prequel set between&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Infinity War&nbsp;featuring a single non-superpowered Avenger who had died in&nbsp;Endgame. Black Widow should have gotten a solo flick years ago, like maybe during the summer of 2017 between&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Infinity War.



That past-due status and Natasha having already sacrificed herself mars the “event movie” nature of this MCU actioner. Ditto the Kate Shortland-directed movie being the MCU film with a solo female director after Patty Jenkins’&nbsp;Wonder Woman,&nbsp;Patty Jenkins’&nbsp;Wonder Woman 1984&nbsp;and Cathy Yan’s&nbsp;Birds of Prey&nbsp;(plus Lexi Alexander’s&nbsp;Punisher War Zone&nbsp;from a pre-MCU era). With no forward narrative momentum and its existence as essentially unfinished business before Phase Four kicks into gear, the MCU brand would do more heavy lifting than usual. Under this scenario, I’d argue an opening weekend between $75 million (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and $88 million (Doctor Strange) and a likely over/under $200 million cume (taking the Disney+ variable into account) for&nbsp;Black Widow.



Conversely, maybe Marvel is Marvel come hell or high water. Black Widow is one of the original Avengers, and her&nbsp;Endgame&nbsp;death may make this more of a curtain call as opposed to what otherwise might have been a palette cleanser between the third&nbsp;Captain America&nbsp;and the third&nbsp;Avengers&nbsp;movie. She may not be as globally popular as Spider-Man or Iron Man, but Black Widow isn’t some newbie being introduced with a conventional origin story. Even absent similar hype levels as&nbsp;Captain Marvel&nbsp;or&nbsp;Black Panther,&nbsp;it would still be the first biggie of the summer back in 2020. That slot which hasn’t yielded an under (inflation-adjusted) opener under $100 million since the first&nbsp;Thor&nbsp;($65 million in 2011/$75 million adjusted).



Under this “Marvel is Marvel, Black Widow is still popular and Scarlett Johansson is still a star” scenario, yeah, an opening on par with&nbsp;Thor: Ragnarok&nbsp;($123 million in 2017 for an eventual $335 million domestic/$854 million worldwide cume) or&nbsp;Spider-Man: Homecoming&nbsp;($116 million/$334 million/$881 million) would be likely. As the first biggie of summer (which can be frontloaded for Marvel… see&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Iron Man 3), we might have expected an over/under $300 million domestic finish. And that would have been just fine for this “stand alone” offering, especially presuming conventional 35/65 domestic/overseas split for a $800 million-plus finish. Heck,&nbsp;Ant-Man 2&nbsp;($216 million domestic and $620 million worldwide)and&nbsp;Doctor Strange&nbsp;($238 million/$677 million)-level grosses would be/will be okay too provided folks like the movie.



So, looking at a Covid curve, and the film being available to lease on Disney+ for $30, we’re still likely looking at a domestic debut between $80 million and $110 million this weekend. It’s possible that the film might have played like&nbsp;Thor 3&nbsp;but will now have to “settle” for playing like&nbsp;Ant-Man 2&nbsp;due to “the current normal,” but I’d argue the above-noted triumphs mean that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;doesn’t have to be graded on that heavy a Covid curve. Whatever&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;would have earned domestically in May 2020 (sans Covid but amid a crowded marketplace) may be close to what it earns in July of 2021 (with Covid but seemingly unopposed), give or take repeat business, strong mid-July competition and/or Disney+.



Will Black Widow be the first $100 million-plus domestic opener since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in December of 2019? Will it be the first $200 million-plus domestic grosser since Bad Boys for Life in January of 2020? Back in early 2020, I presumed that F9 would be the year’s biggest global grosser (obviously sans Chinese mega-movies at the time) with Black Widow neck-and-neck worldwide with likely domestic champion Wonder Woman 1984. Now, in mid-2020, I’m guessing F9 will rule the summer (among Hollywood flicks) while Spider-Man: No Way Home has the best shot at ruling the year and being the next $1 billion grosser. As for where Black Widow fits into the great (and slow) theatrical recovery of 2021, well, watch this space.



By Scott Mendelson, Forbes Staff

bbu-32704_r3_8068a280

‘Black Widow’: Pessimistic And Optimistic Box Office Preview

With the social scene slowly crawling back to some semblance of normalcy, entrepreneur Bukky George-Taylor is cashing in with an app for customers keen on curated events and experiences in Nigeria.



If there is one person who knows what is hot and trendy in Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country, it is Bukky George-Taylor.



As the CEO and Founder of Robert Taylor Media Ltd., a boutique communications and events company based in Lagos, Nigeria, she is the force behind some of the biggest brand activations and campaigns in the country as well as providing representation for global brands looking to penetrate the African market. 



And her latest creation, a mobile app named CRAWL Africa, launched in Lagos in March, seems to address the need to adapt to a new social life in ‘a new normal’. She calls it Africa’s first social calendar app on a mission to revolutionize social experiences in Africa by presenting a collection of curated experiences for the discerning and upwardly-mobile African consumer.



“Finding information on where to go or contacting establishments in Nigeria and across Africa can be a chore. With no access to 411 or yellow pages in Africa, CRAWL provides you with all the accurate contact information to contact businesses and to tour your city,” says George-Taylor about the new app, which currently has over 100 businesses listed.



With a degree in African-American history from the University of Massachusetts in the United States, George-Taylor has built a firm that services the corporate, entertainment, lifestyle, fashion, beauty and health sectors. This has always ensured her access to the hottest events and happenings in Nigeria.



But why choose to launch an app when the retail and hospitality sector is still recovering from the effects of a raging pandemic?



“The app launched because our city [Lagos] started to open back up with restaurants and smaller events. One of the major reasons was because of travel restrictions; the app was birthed to promote tourism and encourage people to start exploring their own cities.



“The app also enables CRAWLers to save their favorite locations or experiences for future references with a single tap while making suggestions to users based on the preferences they select,&nbsp;such as budget, location, and more.”&nbsp;



As Nigeria’s social scene gradually reopens, the events listings will be reflected on the app. George-Taylor is now also looking at other cities in sub-Saharan Africa such as Accra, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Cape Town in which to launch CRAWL Africa.

5A6A8883 1 (1)

Want To Party In The New Normal? This Could Be How

From Hollywood exports and Grammy artists to award-winning ideas that can save the world, Africa is not only diverse in its people but also in its industries and creativity. For FORBES AFRICA hundredth issue (since the magazine’s inception in 2011), we decided to curate a list celebrating these very ideas, inventions, and influential role models that have spelled Africa’s growth over the last decade.



Having been in the film industry for over 30 years, award-winning South African actor Connie Ferguson is on the list for her impact as an actor, producer, and filmmaker. In 2018, she also graced the cover of FORBES WOMAN AFRICA. She talks to FORBES AFRICA about being included on the icons list.



Correct us if we are wrong but you have had almost 30 years in the acting industry and you have been hugely successful-what/who do you owe your success to?&nbsp; I’ve been in the industry for 31 years now and literally grew up in it and with it! I owe my success to simple perseverance, hard work and never taking anything for granted! Faith and prayer have also been a big part of it! And the people who have believed in me and cheered me on along the way, especially my family, are the reason I never gave up even when times were hard.



 What have been some of your highlights as both an actress and businesswoman?&nbsp; My highlights as an actress are definitely my time at Generations, a show that allowed me the opportunity to build my personal brand, my role as Mavis in Rockville, our debut show as executive producers, and my current role of Harriet Khoza on The Queen. Although the different awards received over the years are humbling and appreciated, the loyal fans and viewers that diligently follow and appreciate my work, are who make it all worthwhile.&nbsp; As a business woman, being the first SA TV personality to launch a perfume in 2008, and a body care range Connie Body Lotion and Connie Men in 2015. Winning the Shoprite Supplier Of The Year Award in 2015 was the cherry on top.&nbsp; Ferguson Films, a production company I own and run with my husband Shona, is also not only a highlight but the biggest blessing! We are able to create work for a hundred plus in a very tough economic climate. All our shows have performed exceedingly well, and we are truly grateful to the people who follow and enjoy our work. They inspire us to keep the creative juices flowing.



 In your opinion what do you think makes an icon?&nbsp; Someone that is not only aspirational but inspirational, that is memorable and leaves a mark wherever they go. 



Can you comment on us at FORBES AFRICA considering you an icon.  I appreciate the honor. I didn’t set out to become an icon. I let my work speak for itself and endeavor to empower and touch as many lives as I can positively. The titles and accolades that come with that are a bonus!



<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2021/04/01/the-100th-issue-100-innovations-inventions-icons-from-africa/">For more on the 100 Innovations, Inventions &amp; Icons From Africa (Forbes Africa)</a>



Get the best of Forbes Africa sent straight to your inbox with the latest insights and inspiration from experts across the continent.&nbsp;<a href="http://eepurl.com/cAlInb">Sign up here.</a>

IMG-20180907-WA0012

‘Success is a choice! Rise and grind!’- says Connie Ferguson

The five top-earning Oscar nominated actors earned a combined $41 million over the past 12 months—less than half the $87.5 million the Rock made last year as the world’s highest-paid actor.



Make art or make money — that’s been the conundrum for A-list actors going back to the days of the first talkies. And unlike the tumult that has rocked the movie business in the past year, that is one Hollywood tradition that has remained entrenched and unmovable.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The five top-earning Oscar nominated actors this year made a combined $41 million over the past 12 months—less than half of the $87.5 million&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/08/11/the-highest-paid-actors-of-2020-dwayne-johnson-ryan-reynolds/?sh=2daa50ec112b">the highest-paid actor</a>&nbsp;Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) earned last year. Only one of them, Viola Davis, made last year’s lists of top-earning actors or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/10/02/the-highest-paid-actresses-2020-small-screen-stars-like-sofia-vergara-ellen-pompeo-and-elisabeth-moss-shine/">actresses</a>, and it was thanks to her television role on&nbsp;How To Get Away With Murder, not her nominated starturn in&nbsp;Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.



“In a world where accomplished performers have decent choices, the material and the talented director often mean more than the money,” says Ken Ziffren, a partner at leading entertainment law firm Ziffren Brittenham. “To get nominated, even though they may not win, by SAG or for the Oscars, can also materially improve economics in the future.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The top-earning Oscar contender, Sacha Baron Cohen, illustrates the dichotomy between the popular and the films deemed award-worthy. He is nominated for two Academy Awards on Sunday night: One for his role as political activist Abbie Hoffman in the drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, andthe other for writing the adapted screenplay for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a sequel to the hit 2006 comedy, Borat, which Amazon acquired for $80 million. 



The statuettes he’s up for may look the same, but the money he made doing the two films couldn’t be more different: He earned about $20 million for&nbsp;Borat —&nbsp;twenty times the $1 million he received for&nbsp;Trial.&nbsp;The yawning pay discrepancy illustrates the choice that industry players have had to make for decades: do a big-budget blockbuster for fat cash or a prestige film for acclaim and, less cynically, the love of the craft. In rare cases, as with&nbsp;Borat, the two can overlap, but more often than not, the performers vying for an Oscar aren’t taking those roles for the money.



That said, an Oscar win is often the right mix of publicity and validation to help increase future earnings potential. Take Angelina Jolie, who was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/10/02/the-highest-paid-actresses-2020-small-screen-stars-like-sofia-vergara-ellen-pompeo-and-elisabeth-moss-shine/">the world’s second highest-paid actress</a>&nbsp;last year with $35.5 million in earnings. Prior to her Academy Award-winning performance in&nbsp;Girl, Interrupted, Jolie had mainly acted in independent films that failed to garner a wide audience—or big paychecks. Her supporting actress win in 1999 changed her fortunes: She landed the titular character in the 2001 video-game inspired adventure film&nbsp;Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.&nbsp;By 2004, she was commanding $10 million per role, plus backend, for big budget flicks, and that number has only gone up since.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates she received $20 million for her recent starturn in&nbsp;Maleficent 2.&nbsp;More recently, 20016 Oscar winner Brie Larson moved on from smaller budget fare to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Captain Marvel. Her first starturn as the superhero, 2019’s&nbsp;Captain Marvel, was the first female-led superhero film to gross over $1 billion at the box office.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates she made more than $10 million in total for the film.&nbsp;



Here’s a look at this year’s Oscar paydays:



<h2 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-5-daniel-kaluuya-3-million">#5 | Daniel Kaluuya: $3 million</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50907" width="622" height="349" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1313212178-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 622px) 100vw, 622px" /><figcaption> (Photo by GALECA.org/via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



After earning his first Oscar nomination in 2018 for starring in Get Out, Kaluuya is the favorite to win the award for best supporting actor this year for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah. While he and co-star LaKeith Stanfield earned the same amount of money for their work on the project, Kaluuya collected an extra check for an XBox ad based on his Get Out role.



<h2 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-4-glenn-close-4-5-million">#4 | Glenn Close: $4.5 million</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50908" width="690" height="388" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1310835879-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px" /><figcaption>. (Photo by 27th Annual SAG Awards/Getty Images for WarnerMedia)</figcaption></figure></div>



While Hillbilly Elegy may have failed to be a critical favorite as Netflix hoped, one of the film’s stars, Glenn Close, still got her Oscar nomination. Fees for the eight-time Oscar nominee and her co-star Amy Adams likely commanded about 10% of the film’s $45 million budget. Indie flick Four Good Days also contributed to her payday.



<h2 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-3-chadwick-boseman-5-million">#3 | Chadwick Boseman: $5 million</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47417" width="741" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-scaled-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-915935210-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 741px) 100vw, 741px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney)</figcaption></figure></div>



The late star, who died in August 2020 from colon cancer at age 43, worked until his final days and was nominated for his portrayal of Levee, an ambitious horn player in Ma Rainney’s Black Bottom, which was released posthumously. A certified commercial star after his role as T’Challa in Black Panther, this is his first Academy Award nomination. Boseman also collected a check for a supporting role in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. 



<h2 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-2-viola-davis-7-million">#2 | Viola Davis: $7 million</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50909" width="661" height="371" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1311362100-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 661px) 100vw, 661px" /><figcaption>. (Photo by AAFCA 2021 via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



Davis can command top dollar for buzzy television roles—like that of Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder—and her L’Oreal campaign but takes smaller checks for passion projects. That said, after winning an Oscar in 2017 for her last role in another August Wilson adaptation, Fences, she was likely able to negotiate a raise for her nominated role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Forbes estimates her paycheck for that film to be $3 million. 



<h2 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-1-sacha-baron-cohen-22-million">#1 | Sacha Baron Cohen: $22 Million</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50910" width="717" height="403" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1312531620.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 717px) 100vw, 717px" /><figcaption> (Photo by The Hollywood Reporter LLC via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



Amazon reportedly shelled out more than $70 million for the mockumentary Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and as the star, producer and writer, Baron Cohen got an impressive cut of the profits. For Aaron Sorkin’s highbrow drama about the trial of a group of Vietnam War protesters accused of inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, meanwhile, “everyone worked for a fraction of what they are usually paid,” one top entertainment agent said.



METHODOLOGY: The earnings above are pretax and fees, and reflect all projects that have been released in the past 12 months. Earnings estimates are based on data from MRC Data, Box Office Mojo and IMDB, as well as interviews with industry insiders



By Madeline Berg, Forbes Staff



By Dawn Chmielewski, Forbes Staff

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The Highest-Paid Oscar Nominees 2021

An insatiable hunger for programming and digital technology has led to an explosion of Over-The-Top (OTT) channels. An African perspective.



By Paula Slier



Broadcasting in Africa has come a long way in the past 20 years. Before smartphones, wireless internet, small cameras and non-linear editing became mainstream, the industry relied on a somewhat messy fusion of then ground-breaking technology like satellite transmission and old-fashioned communication.



I remember working in television in Nairobi in 1998. The video editor and I were seated in front of the editing suite. At the far end of the corridor waited the cameraman; after him, the passageway turned sharply to the right and 12 meters further on stood the producer. Another sharp right turn, another corridor and in the distance was the satellite operator.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">According to Digital TV Research, at the end of last year, collective OTT revenues in Africa reached $392 million and are set to rise to $1.7 billion by 2026. The bulk of the market is, and will continue to be, Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) packages</blockquote>



“Now” shouted the video editor from some 40 meters away as he pressed play on the machine.



“Now” repeated the cameraman from his corner.



“Now” echoed the producer.



“Now” confirmed the satellite operator as he uplinked the video.



Fast-forward two decades and the industry has completely changed. The jobs of five people have amalgamated into one. Far from being the passive consumer of media, audiences are now producers and journalists in their own right.



“Gone are the days that the nuclear family would schedule time to watch something around the TV as a family unit,” says Christina Foley, Managing Director of United Kingdom-based Marvel Media Consultancy.&nbsp;



“Now you have an entire family watching different things in different rooms at the same time. We are digesting content in a very different way. We have a choice which gives us opportunity to watch when, how and what we want.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Christina-Foley.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50685" width="326" height="435" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Christina-Foley.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Christina-Foley-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px" /></figure></div>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“Now you have an entire family watching different things in different rooms at the same time. We are digesting content in a very different way. We have a choice which gives us an opportunity to watch when, how and what we want.” – Christina Foley, Managing Director of United Kingdom-based Marvel Media Consultancy</blockquote>



The result is an insatiable hunger for programming and digital technology. This has led to an explosion in the last few years of Over-The-Top (OTT) channels through which content is delivered via an internet connection rather than a traditional cable or broadcast provider.



According to Digital TV Research, at the end of last year, collective OTT revenues in Africa reached $392 million and are set to rise to&nbsp;$1.7 billion by 2026.&nbsp;The bulk of the market is, and will continue to be, Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) packages that allow users to consume as much content as they desire at a flat rate per month. Revenues from such services like Netflix and Disney+ will grow from a current $299 million to $1.5 billion in the next five years.



“Absolutely OTT is the future everywhere, not just Africa,” says Foley.



“News and entertainment will use OTT. A lot of the mobile companies like MTN and Cell C are putting together their own content packages so when they sign up new customers they can offer them this on top for a fee.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50686" width="313" height="313" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann.jpg 800w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Amadeo-Rahmann-80x80.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 313px) 100vw, 313px" /></figure></div>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“We believe that the growth of digital streaming services in Africa means that the continent is primed for the democratization of content.” – Dr Amadeo Rahmann</blockquote>



But the&nbsp;switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting has been delayed in many African countries because of low internet penetration rates –&nbsp;the continent has a total internet penetration level of just under 40% compared with penetration in the rest of the world at 63.2% – limited WiFi and the high cost of data.



Martin Brasg, a broadcast consultant who’s worked with clients across the continent for the past three decades, blames this on internal politics.



“Traditional broadcasters hold monopolies over internet services and are not willing to let go. In South Africa, for example, for years they’ve been putting the brakes on cheap internet. Until a few years ago, Telkom, the country’s biggest provider of communication services, was the only company that could install fiber broadband connection. This was until the second network operator Neotel came on board. Since then a number of fiber-to-the-home operators started being more prolific in South Africa, enabling more consumers to have broadband at home.”



The potential for Africa is huge. According to Internet World Stats in December 2019, more Africans (526 million) accessed the internet than North Americans. But whereas Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria are ahead of the curve and have taken advantage of good quality internet and a deregulated internet industry, other African countries are lagging behind. Several are listed among those with the lowest internet speed and yet the most expensive communication and internet costs in the world.



“Things in South Africa started to change around three-to-five years ago,” reflects Brasg.



“Consumers have also been moving away to free-to-air operators like OVHD (open view HD) that offer a library of TV shows, films and original programming.”



The lack, and theft, of infrastructure in Africa has also set up OTT to expand enormously over mobile networks, points out Joanne Raphael-Katz, Managing Director of South African-based Exceptional Rights. Katz has been delivering OTT and VOD content to mobile and TV customers for the past two decades.



“Consider that in South Africa there are approximately 14 million TV households but 53 million smartphones. This makes OTT via mobile a force to be reckoned with,” she says.



“Mobile is so accessible and payment is by time, making it ideal for the underbanked. Phones are upgrading and always improving – a smart phone with a rich media screen doesn’t have to be the latest iPhone or Samsung. There are plenty of devices to suit all brackets of income and allow for OTT via mobile.” Africa is on record as having the fastest growing mobile telecommunication market but when it comes to content via mobile there’s still a long way to go.



User-generated content – content created by people rather than brands – like TikTok have become popular overnight.



“Apps and concepts like this will always change and shape the world and how we use our mobile. The spectrum is being opened and auctioned and will change the amount of content we consume. Content providers can also now supply their channels to DSTV via IPTV [internet television] to their platform, doing away with expensive satellite expenses,” says Katz.



But inevitably as more players enter the OTT market, competition is growing.



Dubai-based mobile technology company, Mondia, is one of many penetrating the market. In the last three months, it launched its time-based entertainment platform, Monsooq, in South Africa and Nigeria. Utilizing time as currency, users can buy entertainment time just as they would mobile airtime and use it to consume any content they choose. At the moment, the platform offers over 20,000 hours of entertainment.



“We believe that the growth of digital streaming services in Africa means that the continent is primed for the democratization of content,” says CEO Dr Amadeo Rahmann.



“Covid-19 has had such a dramatic impact on economies globally, deeply affecting consumers’ disposable income. We believe this model will have huge appeal in emerging markets.”



With a population set to double to 2.5 billion over the next 30 years, Africa also offers a vast and growing youth demographic for broadcasters and content producers. As the world of entertainment continuously evolves, consumers too will benefit greatly, accessing information as rapidly as they want – on demand and on the go.

TV remote control in the foreground, Video on demand screen in the blurry background

The Three Letters Driving Entertainment

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IF YOU CAN SPARKLE IN THE entertainment world, chances are you can bring the same spirit to the boardroom as a CEO.



After 16 years in the music industry, Ntombezinhle Jiyane, popularly known as ‘DJ Zinhle’ and one of South Africa’s most-renowned deejays, is proving that right.



She has acquired equity in the international sparkling wine beverage, Boulevard Nectar Rosè, and has taken over as CEO.



In a recent interview with FORBES AFRICA, the artist, famous for her Umlilo music, spoke about how excited she is to be working with a brand she shares synergy with: “I love to celebrate, whether it’s at my house, whether it’s at a gig. Celebrations have also been



part of my life for the past 16 years as a DJ, and Boulevard fits perfectly into that. And I just thought I wanted to be part of people’s celebrations even more.”



With Covid-19, Zinhle has been forced to work from home like everyone else but says that this has not stopped her from putting in the long hours. Admitting that during the time of the lockdown, a great deal of adaption had to happen, Zinhle says she owes a lot of her success to her young and dynamic team who share the same values as her.



“Without my team, I don’t think I would have made it this far even with a lockdown in it; my biggest mission was to make sure that no one leaves the team, no one gets fired, no one is dismissed. Because now my team is so perfect, and they’re so dedicated.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="DJ Zinhle Answers Five Questions" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3bBWY2FNgfg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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DJ Zinhle 4

In The Right Spirit

My cell phone lights up with a coronavirus joke: “After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time, this week I discovered that wasn’t the reason.”



Laughter, it’s said, is the best medicine. And there’s plenty of evidence to prove it. Experts say cracking a joke can relieve mental and physical stress, reduce pain and allow us to tolerate discomfort.



It should come as no surprise then that as the world hunkers down in the face of the worst global health crisis in 100 years, gags, memes and funny videos are spreading almost as fast as Covid-19.



My cell phone lights up again: “Three hours into homeschooling and one child is suspended for skipping class and the other one has already been expelled.”



Black humour, explains Professor Arie Sover, a lecturer and researcher in communication and humour studies at the Open University of Israel, is a psychological means for coping with very difficult or impossible situations.



“It’s both a relief system and a tool which permits sharing one’s anxieties with the community.”



But many criticize making light of a serious subject. With more than half a million people who’ve already died from the virus, it doesn’t seem like the most appropriate time to be making jokes.



“Everyone has his own line,” agrees Professor Sover. “It depends on culture, psychological traits and education… One has to be smart using humour, but humour should not be restricted or forbidden.”



“I think many things provoke anxiety at a time like this,” says comedian Yisrael Campbell.



“When it comes to dealing with anxiety and coronavirus, for some people, staying at home is soothing and for others, it’s the opposite. Some people will be comforted to wear a mask outside, some people will be more anxious. I don’t think we can blame humour for this, or tag it as an anxiety provoker,” he says.



Benji Lovitt, another comedian, says if someone is watching stand-up comedy, or reading jokes, and getting stressed out, there’s nothing that can be done.



“You can’t please everyone. If there are a thousand people and someone is getting offended, what are we saying, that we should shut down comedy? Forget coronavirus, should we not have stand-up comedy about relationships because someone got dumped? This is the problem with today and the masses on Twitter, the loud minority. They represent everyone. If we are worried about people getting offended, then we have no more freedom of speech. The judges say if a reasonable person would find this not offensive then that’s what we should go by and not by the crazy one percent.”



“By definition, racist jokes aren’t funny,” insists Lovitt. “The comedian should be smart and that’s why comedy is tough. It often takes a professional to know where the lines are and what is appropriate. Once you start saying ‘this person cannot tell this joke’, it’s a dangerous and slippery slope and you can’t have comedy anymore. What we do know is that a person in a certain group is going to be more successful telling a joke about that group than someone who is not in the group.”



With Covid-19, we are all in the same group which makes the jokes universal.



Especially now as the virus seems to be growing with no vaccine on the horizon, joking gives people a sense of being in control of an uncontrollable phenomenon. We laugh also to connect with others – something we have lost in our fight against the virus. Many people find that the joke is their warmest companion against what’s happening.



– By Paula Slier, the founder and CEO of Newshound and the Middle East bureau chief of Russia Today.

Multi ethnic group of people in the movie theater

Comedy In The Time Of Crisis: Is Laughter The Best Medicine?

TOPLINE Trustees working to claw back money owed to investors, lenders and attendees of the 2017 bankrupt music extravaganza Fyre Festival settled a lawsuit with model and influencer Kendall Jenner for $90,000⁠—less than half of the $275,000 she was sued for in connection to a promotional Instagram post.



KEY FACTS



<ul><li>Jenner is among entertainers such as Blink-182 and Pusha T who were paid for their involvement in the festival⁠—which promised days of parties, luxury accommodations and gourmet food, but was instead a complete flop, and generated multiple lawsuits.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Bankruptcy law <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/publications/blt/2020/02/trustee-clawback/" target="_blank">allows</a> trustees to recover, or claw back, payments made before a company filed for bankruptcy, and Jenner and other entertainers were sued by Fyre Festival trustees to recover money for creditors.</li></ul>



<ul><li>According to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/fyre_festival_trustee_lawsuit_kendall_jenner.pdf?mod=article_inline" target="_blank">court documents</a>, Jenner was allegedly paid $250,000 to promote the festival in a single, now-deleted Instagram post, along with an additional $25,000 a few days after the post went live.</li></ul>



<ul><li>“So hyped to announce my G.O.O.D Music Family as the first headliners for @fyrefestival,” Jenner wrote in the deleted post, according to court documents. “Use my promo code KJONFYRE for the next 24 hours to get on the list for the artists and talents afterparty on Fyre Cay.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>The lawsuit <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/fyre_festival_trustee_lawsuit_kendall_jenner.pdf?mod=article_inline" target="_blank">alleges</a> that Jenner did not indicate she was paid for the Instagram post, and “intentionally led certain members of the public and ticket purchasers to believe” her brother-in-law Kanye West, G.O.O.D’s founder, could attend or perform at the festival.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Jenner, who has 129 million Instagram followers, denied any liability connected to the lawsuit, according to court documents; the settlement still requires a judge’s approval, and, as the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kendall-jenner-settles-lawsuit-over-fyre-festival-11589991702?mod=e2tw" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a> reported, will avoid spending more time and money on litigation.</li></ul>



BIG NUMBER



Over $26 million. That’s how much money Fyre Festival investors&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2019/10/24/fyre-proof-the-sudden-fall-and-swift-re-emergence-of-fckjerrys-elliot-tebele/#24b9cfe564e8">ultimately lost</a>, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.&nbsp;



KEY BACKGROUND



Fyre Festival⁠—which promised attendees (who paid anywhere from $500 to over $250,000) a two weekends-long party full of marquee music acts and models like Jenner and Bella Hadid⁠—was a failure. The reality, as chronicled in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&amp;ai=DChcSEwjgzcKYnMPpAhW87LUKHfP3DkUYABAAGgJxbg&amp;ohost=www.google.com&amp;cid=CAESQeD2Naq493iIchLiPH00lSujsk3BkXm6RuGpYhP5MfzrplJ8a5Dxo-R6Lq8PZo3Yqk9dQ_NuTBcJ8w43wDSkl-c0&amp;sig=AOD64_14YAQP3GC5wvqfp81vZfTd2RFOGQ&amp;q=&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiVgbeYnMPpAhWHhOAKHWq_CAYQ0Qx6BAgsEAE&amp;adurl=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81035279" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">documentaries</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/01/22/amy-schumer-jumps-in-on-mocking-fyre-festival/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mocked</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thewrap.com/fyre-festival-disaster-twitter-mocks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">extensively</a>, involved FEMA tents, cheese sandwiches in foam containers and stranded festival-goers. None of the promised entertainers showed. The Fyre Festival fallout resulted in multiple lawsuits. Its founder, Billy McFarland, is serving a six year prison sentence for multiple fraudulent schemes. He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thewrap.com/fyre-festivals-billy-mcfarland-asks-for-early-prison-release-due-to-coronavirus-risk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">requested</a>&nbsp;compassionate release in light of the coronavirus pandemic. It was denied.



TANGENT



In 2019, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2019/07/05/kardashian-clans-716-trademarks-how-kim-kanye-kylie-and-kendall-protect-their-brands/#2f8d4df24e67">Forbes reported</a> that Jenner held 34 U.S. trademark applications among the over 700 owned by the Kardashian clan (that’s Kim, Kanye, and sister Kylie, along with Kendall)⁠.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/">Lisette Voytko</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

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Kendall Jenner Settles Fyre Festival Instagram Post Lawsuit For $90,000

Whilst other industries succumb to the coronavirus pandemic, Netflix is reigning supreme.



With almost half the planet in lockdown, the streaming giant is cashing in on a captive home audience, even in Africa.



Pushing more international content on its platform as it takes on competitors Disney+, Hulu (majority-owned by Disney), Amazon and Showmax, Netflix has been vocal about making Africa a new hub for generating original content.



In February, it premiered its first African original series, Queen Sono, a South African crime drama starring Pearl Thusi, which is now going into its second season after receiving rave reviews.



Netflix has also just announced its second African original series, titled Blood &amp; Water.



The series, focusing on “a world of mystery, raw family dynamics and light-hearted relief”, is directed by Nosipho Dumisa. The female cast includes Ama Qamata, Khosi Ngema,&nbsp;Gail Mabalane, Natasha Thahane, and Cindy Mahlangu.



Blood &amp; Water is set to hit your personal screens in May.



Netflix has also announced its next African original series, JIVA!, currently in production. It will be “a fun and energy-packed drama series” on a talented street dancer, and will be a local African production, from script to screen, with an all-African cast and crew.

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Netflix To Debut Second African Original Series

TOPLINE Netflix is one of the few companies actually thriving during the coronavirus, hitting an all-time high in the market Thursday after becoming more valuable than rival entertainment giant Disney.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="960" height="735" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tiger-King.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-44391" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tiger-King.jpg 960w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tiger-King-300x230.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tiger-King-600x459.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tiger-King-768x588.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /><figcaption>&#8216;Tiger King&#8217; has been a huge boon for Netflix, drawing more than 34 million viewers in its first 10 days on the platform, according to Nielsen. NETFLIX</figcaption></figure></div>



<h2>KEY FACTS</h2>



The streamer’s stock climbed 5% by midday, after closing at a record price of nearly $427 per share on Wednesday.



With viewers turning to hits like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2020/04/08/34-million-people-watched-tiger-king-in-its-first-10-days-on-netflix/#56e0cff52a9a">true-crime documentary&nbsp;Tiger King</a>&nbsp;and comfort-food reruns like&nbsp;The Office&nbsp;and&nbsp;Cheers,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2020/03/23/exclusive-disney-sees-huge-subscription-spike-as-homebound-audiences-clamor-for-content/#7f50f02e17c4">Netflix is seeing a spike in new subscriptions</a>, according to streaming analytics firm Antenna.



Aside from increased viewership, Netflix is seeing another benefit from the crisis: like the rest of Hollywood, it has had to halt production, says Lightshed partner and analyst Rich Greenfield, freeing up its cashflow as it accumulates revenue.



What’s good for Netflix is also good for its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/reed-hastings/#73a62bcd2782">cofounder and CEO Reed Hastings</a>&nbsp;— his net worth is now $4.9 billion, a $1.2 billion increase since the end of March.



<h2>BIG NUMBER</h2>



$194 billion. That is how much Netflix&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/netflix">NFLX</a>&nbsp;is now worth, having increased its market value more than $50 billion so far this year. Disney&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/walt-disney">DIS</a>, having been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus, is valued below $184 billion, down from nearly $258 billion at the end of 2019. Disney and Netflix are two of the heaviest hitters in entertainment, but they have opposite approaches. While Netflix is entirely dependent on paid subscriptions for revenue, Disney is much more varied, as reliant on tourism and merchandise sales as it is on the content it puts out. While that diversity has traditionally been its strength, it has become a liability as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2020/04/14/saving-disney-iger-returns-as-coronavirus-batters-the-company-on-all-sides/#37412867e64f">the pandemic forces Disney to shut down theme parks and delay film releases</a>.



<h2>WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



While that pause in production may be good for Netflix’s bottom line now, it could result in significantly less new content in the fall than planned. Even so, Netflix may still be better off than its competitors. “The reality is they have much more content in the pipeline than anyone else right now,” says Greenfield.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/">Ariel Shapiro, </a>Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

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Netflix Stock Hits Record High, Is Now Worth More Than Disney

They’re all closed.



Movie Theaters. Bars. Nightclubs. Arenas. Cafes. In New York, Broadway and museums are shuttered. In San Francisco it’s even more dire. Across the country and the world, cities are shutting down, leaving humans from Seattle to Shanghai without traditional ways of finding distraction.



The mandate for social distancing that has proven essential at slowing the spread of the coronavirus will cut about $12 billion of entertainment revenue from the U.S. if the shutdown lasts until July,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/03/16/cdc-all-americans-should-avoid-gathering-in-groups-of-more-than-10-people/#255b6cb5283d">as President Trump signaled</a>. Billions more are not being spent on creating new content as film and television production is frozen.&nbsp;



Things could get a lot worse.



“This is definitely unprecedented and turning everyone&#8217;s lives completely upside down,” says Ryan Borba, managing editor at concert tracker Pollstar.



The concert and live event industry brought in $34 billion last year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/concert-event-promotion-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to market research firm IBISWorld</a>. Simple math suggests that a three-month shutdown at this time of year could cost that industry $7 billion of lost revenue. Any longer and it starts to cut into the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2020/03/06/as-coronavirus-cancels-sxsw-coachella-could-be-next-as-music-industry-braces-for-a-cruel-summer/#24e8eb076886">popular summer concert season</a>, which for LiveNation, the world’s biggest concert promoter, is when 70% of its attendance begins passing through the turnstiles. That’s bad news for the producers, songwriters, technicians and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/concert-event-promotion-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">269,025 concert employees</a>, including janitors, security personnel and ticket collectors. That’s not to mention the world’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2019/12/06/the-worlds-top-earning-musicians-of-2019/">top-earning musicians</a>, all of whom make the majority of their money performing.&nbsp;



“We’re beginning to see it affect the entire music ecosystem,” one prominent artist manager who <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2020/03/06/as-coronavirus-cancels-sxsw-coachella-could-be-next-as-music-industry-braces-for-a-cruel-summer/#20fa6f7d6886">told Forbes</a> on the condition of anonymity. “We’re getting calls from our agents about promoters canceling individual shows. Songwriters and producers have canceled flights into L.A. for sessions, so it’s starting to trickle down to the songwriting and production communities as well.”



On New York’s Broadway, where all 41 theaters are closed, the hit could be about $600 million, based on the amount they pulled in between mid March and July of 2019. During the 2016-2017 season, those theaters also supported more than 87,000 jobs and contributed $12.63 billion to New York City’s economy, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.broadwayleague.com/research/research-reports/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Broadway League</a>.



The effect on movie theaters is far more drastic. A complete shutdown across the U.S. will mean a $4 billion hit on the box office if they remain closed until July. On March 18, less than a month into the crisis, the national association of theater owner&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/734c2aad0321b93811a13273c112d21f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">requested a bailout</a>&nbsp;from the government.



“From the point of view of studios they are hemorrhaging money on the movie side,” says Mike Bloxham the senior vice president of global media and entertainment at research firm Magid.&nbsp;“There is a lot of money disappearing in China while 70,000 theaters are still closed.”



Once they do reopen, distributors will begin battling to squeeze a large number of films into a limited number of opening dates, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/03/12/hollywood-braces-for-coronavirus-slump-the-movie-releases-pushed-back-so-far/#3be198ba2bed">some major releases</a>&nbsp;that include the latest&nbsp;James Bond&nbsp;movie, Disney’s&nbsp;Mulan&nbsp;and Marvel’s&nbsp;Black Widow, all of which have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/03/12/hollywood-braces-for-coronavirus-slump-the-movie-releases-pushed-back-so-far/#ad8a4d02bed6">pushed back</a>.



“No one can precisely predict when public life will return to normal, but it will return,” Patrick Corcoran, the president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said in a statement on Match 17. “When those titles are rescheduled, they will make for an even fuller slate of offerings than normal as they are slotted into an already robust release schedule later in the year.”



Last year, entertainment companies spent $121 billion to create original content and they were expected to spend even more this year as new platforms, like short-form video platform Quibi, emerge and streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime continue to plow through cash to produce new shows that lure in subscribers. Disney, Netflix, Universal and a number of other studios have all but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/03/13/hollywood-studios-disney-netflix-halt-film-and-tv-production-amid-coronavirus/#327ea2195d28">shut down U.S. production</a>. In California alone, that activity supported more than 722,000 jobs and $68 billion in wages, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. In New York City, television and film production support about 10% of total employment, whether directly or indirectly, and generates almost $9 billion each year.



“Right now, we’re working to keep everyone safe, support the industry and find ways to help it come back stronger than ever,” a spokesperson for Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment said.



The sentiment mirrored that of Colleen Bell, the executive director of California’s Film Commission who said, “The entertainment production industry in California has overcome challenges in the past, and it will endure this sudden shutdown. Until the COVID-19 situation improves, the focus is rightfully on the public health crisis. After that’s behind us, the industry will once again thrive here in the Golden State.”



While those logistics will reverberate widely across show business sectors, consumers may be in for even bigger, long-lasting changes.&nbsp;



For TV shows, the near-term effects could be disappointing for fans looking forward to fresh episodes of their favorite shows. FX’s&nbsp;Fargo&nbsp;has shut down production and will have to delay new episodes. More series are sure to follow. Streamers have already changed the way we watch TV—introducing binge-watching and slowly eliminating cable subscriptions—and the more that cable and broadcast series are delayed, the more likely we will continue to move away from the appointment viewing of television’s past.



In film, a far more dramatic shift just happened: consumers may no longer need to fight crowds at movie theaters on opening nights. Universal Studios announced Monday that it would begin releasing films like&nbsp;Invisible Man, Emma&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Hunt&nbsp;available for in-home, on-demand rentals despite the fact that these films were only recently released, blowing up the entrenched windowing schedule that gave theater chains exclusive rights to show movies first before they were released to in-flight entertainment, rental platforms and then television. Sony followed, releasing Vin Diesel’s&nbsp;Bloodshot&nbsp;for digital purchase only 11 days after its theatrical release.



Others will likely do same and if they do, it could&nbsp;lead the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oscars-keep-rule-requiring-movies-to-have-theatrical-release-to-be-nominated-2019-04-24" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">change their theatrical-release&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oscars-keep-rule-requiring-movies-to-have-theatrical-release-to-be-nominated-2019-04-24" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rule</a>,&nbsp;which only allows films that open in a theatre and stay there for seven days to be considered for Oscars. It may also prompt Netflix to tighten its grip on the entertainment business with the purchase of a theater chain of its own. In 2018, the streaming giant looked at buying Landmark Theatres, but Cohen Media Group beat Netflix to the arthouse chain.



“If this continues for a long time, that will cause a change in how we consume content and allow newer titles to get to home video much faster,” says Asaf Ashkenazi, the COO of Verimatrix, a technology company that works with distributors in Hollywood. “If it’s a new title, you can delay it, continue to follow the traditional system and just wait. Or you can be more experimental and go directly to selling or renting online, which will allow more people to access it and get the revenue now.“&nbsp;



Other businesses are also turning to streaming, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2020/03/18/zombie-jamboree-for-a-struggling-livestream-startup-coronavirus-lockdown-offers-one-last-chance/#7811d2e15e24">concert-streamer StageIt</a>. The startup, which offers concerts from the likes of Jon Bon Jovi and Sara Bareilles, is on track to have revenue of $250,000 this week—about the same as its best month until now—and added&nbsp;10,000 subscribers in two days while hosting virtual festival “Shut In &amp; Sing.” Even New York’s Metropolitan Opera is in on it,&nbsp;<a href="https://operawire.com/metropolitan-opera-to-offer-up-nightly-met-opera-streams/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">streaming nightly performances</a>.



The stars themselves are also shifting their approach to how they entertain and communicate with fans. “Together, at Home,” a new series of online concerts presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Citizen, has recruited Chris Martin and John Legend to give casual concerts from their living rooms via Instagram Live, taking requests from fans and singing songs like David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.” Using Instagram, pop star Lizzo led a meditation, Frozen’s Josh Gad read kids a story, and, on Twitter, Yo-Yo Ma played a “<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/YoYo_Ma/status/1238572657278431234" target="_blank">song of comfort.</a>” Entertainers have already <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/style/celebrity-phone-numbers.html" target="_blank">fully embraced </a>this kind of direct connection with fans and the pandemic may only accelerate that.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/">Madeline Berg</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/media">Media</a>

High angle view of audience enjoying comedy movie at cinema hall

Coronavirus Could Be A $12 Billion Hit To Entertainment And Audiences May Never Be The Same

Move over, Lagos and Johannesburg, Accra too has a burgeoning media and entertainment sector. A 2016 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) predicts the sector in Ghana could be worth more than $1 billion in 2019.
Proving this are events such as the Exclusive Men of The Year (EMY) Africa Awards, which last year brought together 1,000 people including some of Ghana’s top CEOs, founders and achievers. Held on Father’s Day the last two years, it spotlights businessmen who are also role models at home, a campaign Daniel Kojo Soboh, Executive Director of EMY Africa, is hoping will transform the role of men in societies across Africa.
“We did a lot of research and realized there were homes that had no positive male role models young children could look up to. We know that the father’s role is very key, so it’s very important we project some of these men who are doing so great with their family, their work and their business,” says Soboh.
The event is dedicated to celebrating men in Ghana and Soboh is looking to expand his footprint in other African countries as well.
Those awarded include previous FORBES AFRICA covers, Papa Kwesi Nduom and Joseph Siaw Agyepong, for their impact as leading business magnates and inspirational role models.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/09/01/father-ghanaian-theater/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Father Of Ghanaian Theater</a>
“We select people from across various industries, people whose work is impacting society positively. We wanted to present them to young people who learn about them and who can read their stories and be inspired…,” says Soboh.
His own experiences growing up in a mining area in the Western Region of Ghana with a father he looked up to helped shape his outlook.
“My father encouraged us to be anything we wanted to be so long as it was 100% legal,” he reminisces as we sit down in his office in downtown Dzorwulu, Accra.
Soboh’s dream was to become a pilot. He opted for computer science at university instead until he stumbled into the entertainment sector.
“Two years into my course, I wanted to quit because I realized it was not something I wanted to pursue. I fell in love with entertainment… I organized a lot of events so everything pointed to the fact that I was an entertainment person. I loved putting stuff together and putting smiles on people’s faces and I also loved organizing and giving people a good time.”
Soboh joined Imajin Advertising, an events company in Ghana, where he was part of organizing some of Ghana’s most successful events such as the Legends and Legacy Ball, The Stand Up GH concert, and The Ghana Stands In Worship concert. The time was right.
According to the PWC report, Ghana’s entertainment and media sector generated revenues of $685 million in 2016, representing a year-on-year- growth above 25% from its $214 million mark in 2012.
Soboh decided he wanted a chunk of this lucrative market.
<div id="attachment_35818" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35818" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-35818" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1.jpg 1365w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Daniel Kojo Soboh. Photo supplied.</div>
“I started my own agency called Carbon AD to partake in opportunities in this growing sector. I partnered with Exclusive Men’s Magazine as a managing partner and together we created the EMY Africa Awards… The event has grown very quickly and become a household name&#8230;”
Ghana’s entertainment industry has seen significant changes over the past decade, and it has become imperative for companies like Soboh’s to continue to innovate. This relies on sponsorships, and that has not been an easy task for Soboh.
“We strive to raise the bar in terms of events in Ghana&#8230; I mean other people are doing it in Nigeria and Kenya, where they are producing state-of-the-art events and these things come at a cost,” says the man promoting exclusive men in Africa. Are they listening?

kojo

From Accra To Africa

The African entertainment space is perhaps too vast and too cumbersome to measure. But in the scattered data available we find the continent houses the world’s third largest homegrown film industry in Nigeria’s Nollywood, which according to a recent United Nations report, is larger than Hollywood by volume and second only to India’s Bollywood in worth, estimated at around $3 billion. The music arena is sweeping is similar terms.
If an artiste is defined by wholly the extent of their output and global influence, then these women are candidates for celebration.
<h3>Angélique Kidjo</h3>
<h3>Musician, Benin</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30919" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-240x300.jpg 240w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-600x750.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866.jpg 818w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />
She is perhaps the most iconic of modern African songstresses. Known for her electric performances and creative music videos, Kidjo began her musical life in Benin, then known as Dahomey, part of a musical family. Her mother was a theater director and her father, a photographer.
She fled her country following a coup in the early 1980s seeking a secure setting to chase her musical dreams.
“It was not possible to write your own music if you weren’t talking about the communist regime and the people in power. It was one thing I didn’t want to do. So the only option I had was to leave, otherwise I was going to end up in jail,” she says, speaking to us in 2015.
Since then, Kidjo has risen to become a Grammy-award winning artiste with over 37 albums in her repertoire.
The youngest in a large family, Kidjo’s childhood was colored by late nights, singing with her older brothers, at a little bar by the Cotonou lagoon. Eventually, she was headlining at jazz festivals across Europe with the legendary pianist, Jasper van’t Hof, and his afro-jazz ensemble, Pili Pili.
It was a difficult road to stardom.
“It was not easy&#8230;my parents were not rich enough to send [me] money. It was very hard, I had to find work. I did babysitting, I did hotel room cleaning, I did hair-braiding, I was a backup singer in a band. It was a matter of survival but I was free and that freedom had no price for me,” she recalls.
Kidjo did more than survive, she flourished. Her time with Pili Pili eventually led her to a recording deal with Island Records in Paris. A string of number one hits followed and she became a world music icon, picking up awards and accolades at every turn.
TIME magazine hailed her as “Africa’s Premier Diva” in 2007 but she remains true to her personal philosophies in an industry that is notoriously unkind to those with weaker spirits.
“One thing I learned as a young girl singing was always to be true to my inspiration, never ever give that up in order to please other people. If you cannot sing your song alone without instrumentation and be happy, don’t put it out there! You cannot be an artiste thinking that you want to be somebody else. You need to know what kind of artiste you want to be and why you want to be that,” she says.
Kidjo’s latest album, Eve, is dedicated to the women of Africa. She details stories of youth and rise in her memoirs, Spirit Rising, My Life, My Music published by HarperCollins in 2014.
&nbsp;
<h3>Danai Gurira</h3>
<h3>Actress and playwright, Zimbabwe</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30930 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02.jpg 682w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Gurira is a consuming personality. She is both an actress and playwright. Her plot lines are at once accessible and complex, delving into the lives of everyday women fighting the insurmountable and emerging, at their conclusion, to a victorious reckoning. She writes to entertain and educate.
Her Off-Broadway play, In The Continuum, on women making peace with their HIV status debuted when she was still an MFA student at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and won three accolades including the Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress.
Her most recent production, Eclipsed, written in 2009, follows the lives of five Liberian women at the height of the country’s drawn-out civil war as they navigate the horrors of wartime and the people they become.
This has scaled even higher heights than her previous one. It received an African treatment in 2014, at Johannesburg’s Soweto Theatre, in an adaptation directed by South African actress, Warona Seane. The current production opened at the Public Theatre in New York City to rave reviews in October 2015 with Kenya’s Oscar-winning diva, Lupita Nyong’o, at the lead.
As an actress, Gurira can be seen weekly on American hit television serial, The Walking Dead, as the no-nonsense, zombie fighting Michonne. She also has six film credits to her name, notably as Adenike Balogun, a Nigerian woman dealing with infertility, in the independent drama, Mother Of George. Eclipsed ran at The Public Theatre in New York until November 29. A third play, Familiar, based on a Zimbabwean family transposed in Minnesota is slated for 2016.
&nbsp;
<h3>Lupita Nyong&#8217;o</h3>
<h3>Actress, Kenya</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30921 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-206x300.jpg" alt="" width="206" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-206x300.jpg 206w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-300x437.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-600x874.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-768x1118.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-703x1024.jpg 703w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01.jpg 702w" sizes="(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px" />
For moviegoers outside East Africa, Nyong’o must have seemed to burst into view out of relative obscurity. However, she was on the Kenyan stage and television before she took on the hearts and minds of red carpet watchers worldwide.
Nyong’o was a thespian from a young age, as a member of Ian Mbugua’s Nairobi Phoenix Players, she lead as Juliet in a local adaptation of the Shakespearean, Romeo and Juliet.
However, her big break was a culmination of efforts. She signed on as a member of production staff on various big budget films from The Constant Gardener, shot in Kenya, to Mira Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.
From there she won a place at the Yale School of Drama where she was awarded a prize, in her final year, for ‘outstanding ability’ in her craft. Earlier, in 2008, she appeared in an independent short film shot in New York. The year after that, she directed a documentary, In My Genes, on the much discriminated-against albino population in Kenya. It won first prize at the Five College Film Festival.
With all of this behind her, she was cast in her breakthrough role as Patsey in Steve McQueen’s stellar cinematic effort, 12 Years A Slave, just three weeks before her graduation. From there came her surprise Oscar win.
Her most recent project is with Zimbabwean playwright Danai Gurira and her play Eclipsed, playing a young woman who finds herself a sex slave in the rebel camps of wartime Liberia.
&nbsp;
<h3>Souad Massi</h3>
<h3>Singer-songwriter, Algeria</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30931" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-300x452.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-600x904.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-680x1024.jpg 680w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633.jpg 679w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />
Perhaps one of the most successful singer-songwriters in the Arab-speaking world, Massi marries beautifully composed guitar harmonies with her enchanting voice, often the only instruments in her employ, to tell stories through her songs. First-time listeners might compare her music to the American blues softened by the poetic lightness of careful lyrics.
While she is based in France, she was born in Algeria to a forward-thinking, but poor, family of six in 1972. She learned to play the guitar quite early and often performed her compositions to keen family and friends. At the beginning of the 90s, as the country plunged into civil war, Massi joined a political rock band called Akator and had a successful seven-year run with them, producing underground hits and popular music videos.
However, as the war raged on and her popularity soared, she became a target for the conservative fundamentalists that were quickly winning political ground in the country. They threatened her family and they threatened her life. Unfazed, Massi continued her musical conviction, cutting her hair short and disguising herself as a man.
“I grew up in a modest family in Algeria but I [was given] a lot of chances because my parents liked music, so it was easy to listen and to play the guitar. [This became] very hard because it was the civil war, it wasn’t easy to play on stage. In past it wasn’t a problem, but when the movement of Islamists it became very hard for us women to express ourselves, to [wear] clothes that we want. People thought that I [performed] on purpose, to attract attention but that wasn’t my idea,” she told the BBC in October.
Despite her camouflage, it was clear the extremists didn’t care for her music or her opinions. The death threats continued. In 1999, she accepted an invitation to play at a Paris festival and she never returned. Days later she was signed on to a local imprint of Universal Records and two years later she emerged with a celebrated first album, Raoui. It became a commercial success in Europe.
Although a deep yearning for the country she left behind echoes in her music, Massi understands that her voice is much stronger outside the constraints of the conservative society she fled.
“What I did in France, I could never do in Algeria,” she says.
In 2015, she released her latest album, El Mutakallimun, a collection of ancient poems from 9th century Arabic poets living in Cordoba, Spain, put to music. She says she wants the album to counter the negative stereotypes perpetuated of the global Islamic community.
&nbsp;
<h3>Genevieve Nnaji</h3>
<h3>Actress, Nigeria</h3>
Africans, the world over, have patronized a Nigerian movie at one point or another. With complex plot lines and exaggerated theatrics, Nollywood is the undisputed home of African cinema. And of its many on-screen darlings, Nnaji is perhaps one of the more prolific. In 2009, Oprah Winfrey dubbed her the ‘Julia Roberts of Africa’.
A former child model, Nnaji got her start in acting almost by accident. A local soap opera was short of child actors and they called into the modeling agency for recruits. Three names were put forward and she was among them. At eight years old, the actress was born.
“I enjoyed it, it was fun. I never felt so alive,” she told CNN in 2011 about the experience.
Over a decade later, she made her Nollywood debut at 19 with the movie, Most Wanted. Since then, her talent has been lent to over 80 titles of the industry and she has found herself thrust forward as a Nigerian ambassador appearing at film screenings in London and beyond.
This responsibility is not taken lightly.
“As long as you are a celebrity, you are an ambassador [to the rest of the world] they can’t see the whole country so what you show people is basically&#8230;what you show [of] back home,” she says.
In addition to acting, Nnaji has an album, One Logologo Line, released by a Ghanaian record label in 2004. She is also an accomplished model spawning a line of endorsement deals including being the face of Lux beauty products in West Africa.
However, she still has more planned for the future. In 2008, she launched her own clothing line St. Genevieve which donates some of its profits to charity.
&nbsp;
<h3>Warsan Shire</h3>
<h3>Poet, Somalia</h3>
Entertainers do exist in spaces outside music and film. While she is shy to admit she is a performer, writer and poet Shire launched her career at a poetry slam when she was just 16. Although the concept was new and bewildering to her, she got on-stage and performed her piece and to her surprise, won.
“I was very nervous. I didn’t really understand what a poetry slam was. Then I won. My friends jumped around. I didn’t want to ever do another poetry slam, but I think it has a lot to do with how I approach readings,” she says.
Since then she has used the internet to share her work becoming a sensation among a new breed of literary minded young Africans. She has released a popular album of spoken poetry, warsan versus melancholy (the seven stages of being lonely) and has been invited to perform her work from Berlin to Johannesburg.
However, she insists that first she is a writer.
“I’d rather listen than speak. It’s overwhelming, the amount of detail I see in really mundane scenarios: strangers touching one another; someone arguing on the phone; a man falling asleep on the train. I’ll fill in the gaps of the story myself. In my mind I’ll follow them home, I’ll imagine their childhood, what their bedroom looks like, if they are in love with someone who does not love them. The downfall is that I give everything (and everyone) too much meaning. Sometimes a thing is vacant and I’ll create depth for it; that’s not always fair,” she says.
Shire is an also an editor at SPOOK magazine, which focuses on the alternative literary arts. In 2012, she released her debut book of poems, Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth.
&nbsp;
<h3>Anne Kansiime</h3>
<h3>Comedian, Uganda</h3>
Funny woman of East Africa, Kansiime was an internet superstar before she even got on television. Her videos have been liked and shared thousands of times over even though her comedy persona is very Ugandan.
Hailing from a little village in western Uganda, she began her career in comedy while a student at Kampala’s Makerere University. She dabbled in drama and music but continued on with a degree in Social Sciences due to family expectations. Desperately looking for an avenue to showcase her talents, a friend urged her to record her skits and upload them online. After her first few hits, it was clear that she was a big, and unique, talent.
“I didn’t see it coming. I would post a clip and get a reaction, and I thought that I would put it on YouTube&#8230;I got motivated and kept on posting and posting till I started receiving phone calls and [even] receiving money from people who weren’t even in Africa. I didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I was doing a job and I liked it and people liked it,” she told Kenyan media in 2014.
Encouraged by the outpouring of support, she carried on to become a viral hit in no time.
“I just wanted to act. I didn’t understand [then] that acting would make people laugh,” she says.
Already, she has almost a quarter of a million followers on her YouTube channel. Some of her videos have been watched over a million times. She has performed in a variety of venues from London to Lilongwe.
Currently, her weekly online comedy sketch show Don’t Mess With Kansiime can be seen on her YouTube channel. In 2015, she released a debut music album, My Name Is Kansiime, available for digital download on Amazon and Itunes. Kansiime performed live in Washington D.C and New Jersey, as part of her World Tour, in late November.

Tag: Entertainment

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