Showgear Holds Make Music Lagos

By Nseobong Okon-Ekong

An entertainment promotion outfit, Showgear, and its organising partners have announced that Lagos will be joining the global celebration of music in the month of June for a third consecutive year under the umbrella of Make Music Lagos (MML).

Make Music Lagos is the Lagos edition of Make Music Day, a festival of free live music hosted in more than 120 countries all over the world to commemorate World Music Day under the guidance of the US-based Make Music Alliance.

Since its launch, the Make Music Lagos festival has had two editions. The first in 2016 delivered three concerts with performances by Bez, Cobhams Asuquo, Tosin Martins, Olufunmi, Wura Samba, Johnny Drille, Pita, Wole Oni and Lagos Mainland Choir. In 2017, there was the introduction of three landmark music initiatives (Mass Appeal, Learn to Play & Street Studio), and an increase in the number of concert venues to 12. Notable performers at this edition were: King Sunny Ade, Daddy Showkey, Adewale Ayuba, Omawumi, Bez, Sound Sultan, Morayo Music and Folabi Nuel.

For the 2018 edition, the Make Music Lagos crew is upping the ante with a full slate of events across the month of June. The Mass Appeal, a live performance by a diverse group of instrumentalists and bands of the 2018 MML theme song composed by Alternate Sound, comes up on Sunday June 17 at the newly opened JJT (Johnson Jakande Tinubu) Park in Alausa. Learn to Play, a music instruments teaching initiative, runs between June 19 and 21 at Lagos State Education District 1, Agege and on June 21 in other select locations. While Learn to DJ, a teaching initiative that gives aspiring DJs the opportunity to learn from DJ Jimmy Jatt and other leading DJs, and the Street Studio, a free style music production initiative, will be hosted on World Music Day in select locations across the city.

Over 16 concerts will also be hosted on World Music Day in various venues across Lagos. The celebrations will be capped with a Lagos Shutdown, at the Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island with live performances by Lagbaja, Waje and a host of others.

Adeola Akinyemi, Showgear COO and the MML Organising Team Chair said, “we are excited to be back for a third edition of Make Music Lagos following the success and the overwhelming show of support from the last two editions. More importantly, we are excited about the endorsement of the festival by the Lagos State Government which is a big seal of approval on the festival.”