Channel O, part of the DStv pay-TV bouquet, will celebrate Africa Day from Monday 21 May until Friday 25 May with programming that puts African music in the spotlight.
Africa day is Friday 25 May, celebrating the 1963 founding of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union).
Throughout the week Channel O will be sharing a double dose of Original African stories daily at 9am and 5pm. The 10-episode series has been created to hear from artists, managers, producers, DJs, record labels, video directors and others as to what really happened in the making of the continent’s biggest hits.
Up first on episode one is a look at K.O being very late for L-Tido’s We Rolling video shoot; how the SAMAs inspired Umlilo by Big Nuz, and a look behind P Square’s big budget E No Easy – making for a not-to-be-missed premiere for any fan of African music.
Episode two features another great line-up including AKA giving insight into the inspiration behind Victory Lap; M.I. revealing why Undisputed was shot in the same location as Banky W’s Feeling It and Zyon of Liquideep explaining why he was stalking Nonhle Thema in the Fairytale video. Other featured artists on the series include Kwesta (Take That), Waje (So Inspired), Loyiso (Want You); Jozi (Muthaland), Timaya (Watta Bam Bam), L’Vovo (Baying’sukela) and Khuli Chana (No More Hunger), Wande Coal (Bumper to Bumper), Brickz (Sweetie My Baby) to mention a few.
From Monday 21 May till Thursday 24 May at 12 noon viewers can also look out for O-Sessions from Pro, Slikour, Jozi and the legendary TKZee.
And then there is the premiere of season 3 of iRequest on Wednesday 23 May at 6pm. iRequest has grown into one of Channel O’s most popular, viewer-generated content shows. With the new season, the show also uses Facebook [http://www.facebook.com/groups/Irequest] and Twitter [#iRequest] platforms to allow viewers to have their say on the music they want to hear when the iRequest cameras are not around.
The channel really goes into a full African celebration on Friday 25 May with video walls dedicated to Africa through O-Africa Xpress. The O-Africa Xpress airs for a full hour at midnight, 7pm and 10pm as well as for 30 minutes at 4am and 11am on the day, making for hours of proudly African viewing. The 2011 Channel O Music Video Awards will be broadcast again at 12 noon to further celebrate the talent that lies within the continent.
