African music and sounds from the continent are reaching new heights on the international music scene as noted by the success of acts like Burna Boy and WizKid. In late February 2021, Spotify launched in 80+ markets, including Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya; three crucial markets in Sub-Saharan Africa for listener acquisition and cultural relevance in the African music industry.

To take advantage of our presence in these new markets and maximise the opportunity of the increasing globalisation of African music, we set to create a campaign to connect our leading African music playlist, African Heat, to fans across the diaspora.

In partnership with FourTwoCreative, we created Spotify’s first global marketing campaign for African Heat. Campaign highlights include:

Dance film

Spotlighting the Afro-dance community’s role in bringing African pop music to the world, we shot with notable dancers and crews in Johannesburg, Lagos, Accra, London and New York. The 60-second spot featured custom choreography to the amapiano hit, ‘Ke Star’ by Focailistic.

On-platform

To expand the reach of the campaign, we tapped seven African artists to speak on the influence of Afro-dance culture on their music. The artists’ stories lived on African Heat playlist and Spotify social channels. Featured artists included: Focalistic, Fuse ODG, Lady Du, Moonchild Sanelly, Sho Madjozi, Tekno and Lady Du.

OOH

Additionally, all seven artists were featured on a prime billboard placement in Times Square and Toronto. For many of the artists, it was their first time being featured in OOH in the US.

Partnerships

To further amplify the African Heat playlist to new US fans, we executed media partnerships with key publishers. For XXL, we brought together 6lack and Omah Lay to discuss their previous collaborations and the influence of African music – bridging the gaps across continents and genres. For Hypebeast, we tapped influencer Danielle Mbonu to spotlight the playlist through an interview on the rise of Africa on the broader creative scene.