ABUJA, Nigeria & NEW YORK, NY. & LONDON, UK. (Top40 Charts/ Orchard) - The Orchard (NASDAQ: ORCD), a global leader in music and video entertainment, celebrated the success of several of its distributed artists at the MTV Africa Awards this weekend. The event was the first music awards ceremony for the African continent, and P Square, Naeto C, and Ikechukwu were among the list of winners.
Multi-million selling Nigerian R&B duo, P Square (last month's Channel O winners of the best group and best video of the year awards) scooped MTV Africa's Best Group award. Naeto C won Best New Act and Ikechukwu won Best Video award.
'We are absolutely delighted by the success of Orchard artists at the first MTV Africa Awards,' said Greg Scholl, President and CEO of The Orchard. "African music has a tremendous artistic legacy, and we are pleased to see growth in the genre - and what better indicator than MTV's commitment. We are proud to reach new audiences for these fantastic musicians throughout The Orchard's digital platform.'
Hosted by MTV Networks Africa and international telecommunications giant Zain Group, the event was held at the Velodrome Stadium in Nigeria and broadcast on November 22nd on MTV Africa television, online, mobile and radio platforms, pan-African TV channel MTV base, MTV2 (USA), African terrestrial TV channels STV and AIT (Nigeria), TBC (Tanzania), TV3 (Ghana), and participating radio stations across the African continent.
'We congratulate The Orchard artists on achieving such success in the first ever MTV Africa Music Awards with Zain. Among them, P Square, Naeto C and Ikechukwu Orchard artists accounted for one quarter of all the MAMA awards issued on November 22 - a stunning achievement,' said Commented Alex Okosi, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, MTV Networks Africa
The Orchard recently signed exclusive worldwide digital distribution and marketing deals with the Nigeria based labels Sugakane Entertainment (P Square), and Storm Records, whose roster includes Naeto C, Ikechukwu and Sash.
Commenting on its deal with The Orchard, Sugakane Entertainment CEO Alaye Dhannie said, "P Square is the biggest act in Africa with over 20 million CDs sold across the African continent. The Orchard understands the power and the potential of African music, and our historical partnership provides the platform to put African artists on a level playing field with everyone else around the world. First Obama, now Sugakane and The Orchard bring about change.'
Storm Records Chairman, Obi Asika added, 'Nigerian Music is dominant on the African continent and is a source of inspiration for musicians worldwide. Working in partnership with The Orchard to create a digital label provides us with a platform to enable Nigerian and African artists the opportunity to access global markets. Nigeria is ready, Africa is ready and we hope the world is ready for us to colonize the world with our sounds.'
P Square released their second album 'Game Over' on November 24th. Ikechukwu, Sasha and Naeto C each have album releases early in 2009.
