Official Google Africa Blog: November 2022

Meet The YouTube Black Voices Creator, Artist, Singer and Songwriter Class of 2023

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

YouTube Black Voices Fundlaunched short filmstopped Billboard chartsbeen nominated forwon

We’re honored to equip the talented creatives with resources to fuel their creativity. In the coming months, we will work closely with these creators by offering dedicated partner support from YouTube and seed funding to help them develop their channels and grow on our platform. They will also have opportunities to participate in bespoke training, workshops, and networking programs.

We built the YouTube Black Voices Fund to invest with an intention to present fresh narratives that emphasize the intellectual power, authenticity, dignity, and joy of Black voices, as well as to educate audiences about racial justice. This initiative also includes investing in the impact of our platform, and over the program, we've directly empowered more than 500 creators and artists from across the world to support, grow, and fund their channels and content development. In addition to the YouTube Black Voices Fund grantees who partner with YouTube directly, we’ll continue to support and connect with the wider global Black diaspora and communities through a wide range of programming and events.

The YouTube Black Voices Fund is only one facet of the comprehensive work currently underway to make YouTube a place where Black artists, creators, and users can feel empowered to share their stories. We continue to make product and policy changes to meet that goal and recently provided an update on our work to make YouTube a more inclusive platform, including how we handle harmful and hateful comments.

We can’t wait for you to hear more from the Class of 2023 as they continue embarking on their journeys as creators and artists, sharing their stories and their music!

Below is our full list of the #YouTubeBlackVoices 2023 creator class from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Click to learn more about the creators who are joining the YouTube Black Voices Class of 2023: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Africa.
Click to learn more about the artists, songwriters, and producers who are joining the YouTube Black Voices Music Class of 2023.

Posted by Alex Okosi, Managing Director, Emerging Markets, YouTube

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Telling powerful African stories through colour

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Editor's note:

Ravi Naidoo, the creator of the Interactive Africa and Design Indaba, an annual three-day design conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed today's post. He discusses the Colours of Africa project, which showcases the best of African craft, product, industrial design, fashion, film, animation, graphic, cuisine, music, jewellery, and architecture.

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Colors of Africa
At the same time we asked what being African meant to them. The resulting works and thoughts offer personal insights into African lived experiences and add the ever evolving kaleidoscope that is the African continent.

The stories of each creative have been woven into a colourful tapestry which is available on Google Arts & Culture. And this bespoke, online exhibit dives into the artist’s experience of their country – as well grappling with the intricacies of identity. In addition to the exhibits, you can spin the kaleidoscope to explore and collect the colours of Africa. Experience the different countries and travel through Africa guided by the eyes of local artists.

Each work is a personal and completely unique experience of a country. Discover some of the colours of Africa below:

I invite you to discover more about each artist and artwork on the dedicated hub on Google Arts & Culture, or travel through the kaleidoscope here and share your colours with the world.

Posted by Ravi Naaido, Founder & CEO, Design Indaba,

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