Call for registration: Free masterclass for songwriters in West Africa

Emerging and established songwriters in Anglophone West Africa are invited to register for the next edition of The Cookout Africa, a free masterclass with Grammy Award-winning musician Vincent Berry II, which will take place via Zoom on 18 May.

Now in its second year, the masterclass series gives participating songwriters the opportunity to create a song in real-time and contribute lyrics to locally created beats through a collaborative process.

The Western Africa leg of The Cookout Africa is open to participants in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, the Gambia, and Sierra Leone.

Vincent Berry II is celebrated for being the lead songwriter of ‘Sandcastles’ on Beyoncé’s highly acclaimed, Grammy-winning project Lemonade, which became a pop culture phenomenon. The album and film provoked an intense worldwide discussion about race, feminism, social media, and the music industry. Berry has also worked with big names like J Cole, Akon, Sean Paul, Shaggy, Ari Lennox, Babyface, Brandy, Chris Brown, and Mary J Blige, among many others.

The Western Africa masterclass will begin at 6 pm WAT. There are limited slots available, and interested participants can register here(link is external).

The Cookout Africa 2021 masterclass dates:

• 31 March – Eastern Africa.
• 20 April – Southern Africa.
• 18 May – Anglophone Western Africa.
• June – Francophone Eastern, Central, and Western Africa.
• July – Northern Africa.

Supported by Afreximbank, The Cookout Africa is part of the build-up to the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) at the Intra-African Trade Fair 2021 (IATF 2021) in Kigali, Rwanda, from 8 to 14 December 2021