Afropop Worldwide’s first ever South-By-Southwest showcase went down Friday night and according to our man on the scene, Banning Eyre, it was better than we even hoped for. On the phone Eyre told me the Palm Door in Austin was good and full and that people really dug what the six artists from across the continent were doing.
Visa problems are a constant headache when booking acts from Africa, and other showcases over the weekend had to scramble to fill out their line-ups. We got our scrambling out of the way early (it was pretty touch-and-go there for a while), so we were lucky enough that all of our artists were able to make it to Texas.
If you, like I, missed the show because getting to Austin wasn’t feasible (or even because of SXSW’s notorious traffic), fear not: Next week we’re devoting a whole hour to the showcase, featuring interviews with the artists, highlights from their studio work and, of course, audio from the night they rocked Austin.
Banning signed off saying that people kept saying “You have to do this every year,” and at the moment that looks like a pretty appetizing proposition.
Stay tuned for more!
