No. Your money will only be used when your Artist of choice has successfully funded his or her project. Before the target amount is reached, you can take your money and move it to another artist by pressing the withdraw button on your profile!

If the artist for what ever reason decides to pull out or simply doesn’t reach the funding target all your money is transferred back to your personal balance on Africa Unsigned. You can reinvest this money into another artist.

Transaction costs associated to the payment are dependent on the payment method you choose and will be added in a later stage of the payment process. Transaction costs include the costs of administration, fraud check, and a fixed fee for your bank or credit card company. Normally when you shop online, transaction costs are included in the total price but for transparency reasons, we show the amount of transaction costs as a separate cost.

The system allows you to move your money from one artists to another at any time before the artists reaches the funding target. Due to regulations from the Central Bank we cannot hold refundable cash, which means we can’t allow you to refund your money. If you don’t agree with this policy, please help us by sending an email info@dnb.nl

We are The New African Sound! We believe our music will rock your socks off. Our music cannot be found in your local record store, at your local festival or on your local MTV. We believe our music deserves better. We believe you deserve better. Small support from a large group of people is the best way to constitute this change. You can support our movement by investing as little as $1 in an artist of your liking. You’ll be rewarded instantly with exclusive content created and produced by us! Exclusive tracks, videos, concert tickets, freestyle raps, private shows, you name it... Once we've generated enough funds from the crowd, we'll do what we do best to make sure your support translates into great music.

First and foremost we believe in the potential of African music. We haven’t even begun to unravel the treasures of amazing musicians the continent has to offer to the world. African music can become mainstream and we are here to prove it. Secondly, we believe that anyone with a talent for music should be able to reach out to fans around the globe. We think it’s ridiculous and completely unnecessary in this day and age that artists in less developed countries lack recording facilities and access to the world wide web. Last but not least we think Africa has a lot to offer in terms of culture. Many Africans are following and learning from American/ European trends and styles. Capturing and disseminating high quality African content will lead to a two way exchange of inspiration for trendsetters both in and outside of Africa. We decided to enable this change not by lobbying the traditional music industry, but by building a parallel system that will benefit all of us.

Two music experts, Ojay from East Africa and Babylas from West Africa travelled the continent and collected demos. We received hundreds of them and listened to each and every track and presented them on our website to our music panel. The panel selected 5 artists per country based on the uniqueness and quality of their music.

The panel includes famous Africans like Baaba Maal, Didier Awadi and Angela Angweni (judge on Africa Idols). We also included experts from the Western music industry by inviting Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur and The Gorillaz and several famous DJs, radio personalities and journalists.

We give the artists dedicated training and promotion before, during and after they have raised their funds on Africa Unsigned. We give the artists social media trainings, secure the copyrights of their music and enable global collecting of their publishing revenues via our partnership with Buma/Stemra. We release their music on all major online stores and thereby make their music available to a global audience. We promote the artists to blogs, magazines, radio stations and music websites. We connect the artists to our network of music experts and add value where-ever possible.

Although we serve idealistic goals we have chosen for a commercial structure. Africa Unsigned has a viable business model that allows us to operate without the support from subsidies or grants.

There is a lot of variety and diversity in African music that has not been tapped into by the international music scene. African culture is full of customs and traditions that are powerfully conveyed through music. Most importantly, we believe talent should not be stifled due to financial barriers and so Africa Unsigned was created to prove that budding African artists can indeed play an important role and make an impression on the music scene.

Our head office is in Amsterdam. We feature artists from Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mali. Until today we have only featured artists based in Africa, but we will be opening our doors for African artists in the diaspora in the near future.

Every one with a love for music can join Africa Unsigned as a Supporter. Artists go through a selection process.

You can join Africa Unsigned free of charge by clicking the sign in button (right on the navigation menu). If you don’t have an account yet, sign up, it’s free and a welcoming gift will be waiting for you.

A supporter is a music fan who supports an Artist on Africa Unsigned with at least 1 dollar.

By spreading the word and by chipping in a few bucks when you find and artist that suits your taste. Just click support. You will be asked to input your support amount with a minimum of $1. The more you support, the higher and more personal your reward will be. We also reward our supporters for spreading the word with special content or even crazy prizes like a ticket to an African country of choice.

Because you get rewarded with exclusive content. Because your support unleashes a ton of love, respect and appreciation from the artist and our promotion teams. Because you will have the right to say “I discovered them” when the artists come and play at festivals near you.

First we celebrate! Then we execute the plans displayed on the artist’s profile page. This varies from making a professional video clip to the organization of a tour or the recording of an EP. In the case of a recording plan, the tracks are made available to the supporters who backed the recording first. One week later the tracks are released for sale in all major online stores including Amazon and iTunes. In the case of a tour, we start booking the tickets and taking care of the visa’s, in case of a collaboration we start setting up the project. In any case, we use the funding to deliver what the artist has promised.

Yes, you can. In fact, you can support as many artists as you like.

No, once the target amount has been reached, all parties involved will be notified and we will start using the money to produce and promote the artists’ plans. So if you see an artist you like, make sure you don’t miss out on the action.

If you find something on the website offensive or abusive, let us know by sending an e-mail to info@africaunsigned.com

The more money you upload to your balance on Africa Unsigned in one go, the less you will pay for transaction costs. Transaction costs include the costs of administration, fraud check, and a fixed fee for your bank or credit card company. Normally when you shop online, transaction costs are included in the total price but for transparency reasons, we show the amount of transaction costs as a separate cost.

No, we don’t share revenues with our supporters. In stead we share it with our artists and give instant rewards and prizes to our supporters. Check your member profile to see what rewards are waiting for you. If you don’t have an account yet, sign up, it’s free and a welcoming gift will be waiting for you.

We appreciate your support and we want to give you tools and an incentive to spread the word about our vision.

This is a reward we give to supporters of an artist who has successfully funded his or her project on Africa Unsigned. The rewards vary per artist and amount supported. They are listed on the artist profile pages and become visible on your member page when you’ve supported the artist.

A gift is a goodie or a piece of content that we give to our supporters. Gifts are not related to any artist achievements but more to Africa Unsigned on a whole. We could for example decide to reward all of our supporters when we’ve crowdfunded our first 100.000 dollars. Gifts are listed on your member page. If you don’t have a member page yet, simply sign up (link), it’s free and a welcoming gift will be waiting for you.