São Paulo – Registrations for the “Visa for Music” festival, to be held in Rabat, Morocco, from November 16 to 19, are still open for artists worldwide until next Friday (15). The event gathers jurors, representatives of independent and major labels, music critics and agents, among other professionals in the industry. This is the third edition of the event, which was created to promote music and the artists from Africa and the Middle East.
According to the event’s director, Brahim El Mazned, the festival is a showcase for the local music. “Being the first professional market for African and Middle-Eastern music, ‘Visa for Music’ has more than just one main purpose but I would say that it aims at being a sharing platform for the defense and promotion of the music sector of Africa and the Middle East”, said Mazned to ANBA via email.
The director said the event was created from “a paradox”: at the same time that in Africa and the Middle East there are quality artists, the visibility for them to develop and reach international stages is very poor. “Morocco’s example is meaningful as there are more and more qualitative festivals that call on international artists whereas Moroccan artists have difficulty exporting their music partly because of mobility issues”, he says.
During the event, bands and DJs will perform for the jurors. Musical documentaries will be screened. These musical presentations are the opportunity that the artists have to show their work and be eventually selected by a label or agent to perform in other countries and develop their careers. DJs will perform at night, with the same purpose, and the musical documentaries will be screened during the festival. Registrations for the documentaries were closed in March, according to information from the event’s website.
Mazned said that there are, on average, 500 candidates in each of the event’s edition and that, for this year, artists from 65 countries already signed up to participate. They come from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, India and Latin America. Ten bands and artists from Brazil are among them. In the event’s last edition, one of the Brazilians attending was samba singer Adriana Moreira. “African music has influenced many artists over the centuries. That is why we accept applications from any country”, says Mazned.
Not all of those that signed up will be up on the stages of the Visa for Music. In the registration process, the candidates sent their forms and copies of their works. In all, 30 of them will be selected, in June, to perform. Among the documentaries, three of them will be selected for screening. “As an international market for the music industry, we don’t want to miss the music treasures of any region of the world”, he said.
“Visa for Music” Festival
Rabat, Morocco, from November 16 to 19
Registrations until April 15
Further information: http://visaformusic.com/en/
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
