Entertainment entrepreneur, Obi Asika has been named alongside other experts and leaders in the entertainment industry as one of the jurors for the Entertainment Music Lions of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, for this year.
Taking to his LinkedIn handle to make the announcement, Asika who is the Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, NCAC, wrote: “I can’t wait to bring my voice to the Jury room to assess the groundbreaking creativity that will set the creative benchmark for another year.
“This is your moment to have your work recognised on the global stage and make history – explore the full list of Jurors who’ll award your work here: it feels good to be there as a representative of the Nigerian music industry and our journey over the last 3 decades,” he wrote.
Appointed earlier this year to his position at NCAC by the President Bola Tinubu led administration, Asika is known for his involvement in the growth of Nigeria’s music industry, as the founder and CEO of Storm 360 – an indigenous music label. Storm 360 has spawned a lot of Nigerian entertainers including Naeto C, Ikechukwu, Sasha P, General Pype, L.O.S., Ms Jaie, Tosin Martins, and Yung 6ix.
He is a founding partner of Dragon Africa – a strategic communications firm based in London, Lagos and Accra, and the chairman of OutSource Media, a leading communications and content production company. Asika is a prominent figure in laying the infrastructure for the growth and development of the media & entertainment industry.
As Chairman of OutSource Media, Asika has been involved in the production of Nigerian reality television programming such as Big Brother Nigeria, The Apprentice Africa, Dragons Den, Glo Naija Sings, Vodafone Icons Ghana, Calabar Rocks, Amstel Malta Box Office, 100% Naija, And the Winner Is…, Football Legends,The Voice, and Ignite Africa.
He also has a wide transnational business interests in areas including oil and gas, real property, information technology, agriculture, sports, media & entertainment. Between 1987 and 1990, Asika organized successful concerts, charity and entertainment events at university campuses around the UK. He also hosted a weekly radio show at the University of Warwick. He was equally DJ and promoter of over 200 events at universities and clubs in London, using venues such as Legends, Dingwalls, Camden Palace, Brighton Hippodrome, Wall Street, Shaftesbury’s, Crazy Larry’s, Roxanne’s, and L’Equipe Anglaise.
Asika also served as the West Africa partner and co-founder of AMPN West Africa, a production company network which works across Lagos, Nairobi and South Africa with TV formats including The Voice, And The Winner Is, and I love My Country, with offices in Amsterdam, Lagos and Johannesburg.
He has worked with The World Bank, international companies, and government at state and Federal levels to shape public policy and create an enabling environment for the creative industries in particular and commerce in general. He has been involved in developing and nurturing entrepreneurship, sports, creativity, and youth by contributing to various government and policy shaping initiatives including: Governing Council Member, Nigeria, Africa 2.0, and Senior Special Assistant to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan (2015).
In terms of sports development, Asika has served on numerous bodies as well as driving sporting activities around the African continent including: Eko Football (Lagos Football Association) and Soccerex West Africa.
In 2014, Asika was appointed to the African Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington DC. He is the first overseas individual invited to join the committee.[20] On 16 December 2017, at the 3rd edition of The Beatz Awards, Asika was honored with the Industry Professional of the Year Award, by the organizers.
Asika’s latest project is a 10-part documentary called Journey of the Beats which according to Punch Newspaper, aims to tell how the “…present generation of Nigerian artists found their confidence and identity through music and how it enabled the enormous growth of youth culture in Nigeria and on the African continent. It tells a story of a genre of music that has unlocked a global movement from small independent labels and promoters in Lagos to spread globally and produce billions of streams, hits, and fans.”
The show premiered on June 23, 2022 on Show max. In a Native Magazine Profile of Obi Asika done by the journalist, Emmanuel Esomnofu, it was hinted that the project was born from Asika’s many years of attentiveness to Afrobeats sound led by the historian, Ed Keazor and veteran music journalist, Sunday Adebiyi. Esomnofu writes, “That quest took them to the sonic exchange that began when Africans were taken across the Atlantic as slaves, to the music of rebellion they created wherever they found themselves. In Africa, genres were still being moulded and parsed through our unique experiences.