Universal Music Group, the world leader in the music industry, announced in 2018 that it would be expanding its activities in French-speaking Africa by creating a new division of the group dedicated to the label's activities in Côte d'Ivoire.
The Universal group chose to set up the offices of this new division, now headed by Franck Kacou, in the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan.
He oversees the label's activities in 22 African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Chad, and Togo.
Since then, Universal Music's ambition on the continent has been to discover and reveal new talent, build a lucrative African market for artists, and deploy a network of expertise.
To take this further, the major label is launching a training program with the launch of the Universal Music Africa Academy to offer artistic opportunities to future young music talents. UMA ACADEMY is a program that offers professional training dedicated to music-related careers in order to help professionalize the sector.
The first edition will be officially launched on November 10 in Abidjan.