Charlotte Bwana gets transparent and talks living in the moment .
The music industry is full of unsung heroes. The people who shape the sphere of the music industry and keep the ecosystem functioning well. Today I’d like to share the story of Charlotte Bwana the vice president of Audiomack.
I remember planning the interview and setting things up. The time approached when the interview was scheduled to take place. I was nervous, to say the least, but I also felt some sort of accomplishment. I finally got to interview someone that I was following for a long time.
In many aspects, it felt like a full-circle moment. Having seen the rise of Audiomack Africa and the bridges that the platform was able to build for artists within the context of Africa itself. I had a lot of questions.
“I do get that a lot where people are like, oh, when I was doing my research on you and I saw a lot of interviews, but they are more to do with the platform. Less to do with you. ”
This interview could have gone two ways. One, I speak about Audiomack Africa and the impact of the platform bearing in mind this has happened on multiple occasions before. But what I wanted to who Charlotte Bwana is, the woman behind all of Audiomack Africa’s success.
In the music industry, many people behind the scenes help our favourite artists become who we know them to be. Speaking to Charlotte I could see that she is very passionate about what she does and most importantly she has the heart to want to help others.
“I think mostly because I’ve always liked to live a very private life. Which I don’t think I’m doing successfully.”
Charlotte has achieved many things in the music business, helping countless artists achieve their dreams and close deals that have seen Audiomack partner with MTN and MTV to name a few. Despite all that success, she remains levelheaded and as she would describe herself soft spoken
This is in conversation with Charlotte Bwana:
The following interview has been slightly edited for context and clarity:
Daniel Young: How has your year been?
Charlotte Bwana: It feels like we’re in May. That just tells you the amount of work that there is to do. Which is beautiful. I think generally Africa and African music is at a very good space right now if we are this busy. It just shows how much work we’re putting in pushing the culture globally.
Your job requires you to work a lot of hours, in a high pressure environment. How do you cope with the pressure?
Its a matter of finding balance, right? In the beginning I put in a lot of hours, I still do. Its a lot of traveling. Its very hard to find me, in the same place for a long period of time. So I might be in Joburg this week and next week in Accra, and the following week Im in Tanzania. You know, there was a time that I took five international flights within a period of eight days or something like that. And I was like really exhausted at the end of the eight days. I’ve come to learn to find balance where you know when its work time and you know when you can be accessible and you know when you are not accessible. Even for us its taken about two months to have this conversation. It's just because you barely find me online, I'm really trying to be as human as possible.
“I can take in and disconnect when I need to disconnect and be with the family, when I need to be with the family. So I'm very bullish on that for example, family time” - Charlotte Bwana
So then you mentioned that you do travel a lot, experiencing different cultures and different people. How has that been?
For me, that's the best part of my job and everything I do. I think it's the biggest influence for me to be ‘great’ at what I do. Because you can never understand a story unless you’re immersed in the culture. So there's nothing I love more than traveling, meeting different people, eating different foods, and then understanding the culture of that place that I've gone to.
My favorite part of that is understanding the people. Where they're from, why they are the way that they are , why they sing the type of music that they sing. - Charlotte Bwana
You sound very at peace, are you?
I am at peace, growing up I was always very calm. You would never see me agitated or angry or anything like that. I'm always very calm regardless of what's happening. I’ve always being soft spoken. Even when I'm happy, I'm still very soft spoken even when I am angry I like to think about I say and choose my words wisely. As a person my mind has always been running and running and running… I am at that place where my mind is not constantly running anymore because I think that as I grow older ( I turn 32 this year) having just become the vice president of Audiomack. I have come to realize that I am no longer in control of setting my life. I have stopped worrying about things that I no longer have control over.
What drives you in life?
Oh my goodness, good question ! What drives me in life? Nobody has ever asked me that before. I think that everybody has a purpose in life. What people don’t understand is that your purpose can come in different shapes and forms. Your purpose Daniel, could be doing what you’re doing now and having conversations with different people and telling their stories. The story you tell tomorrow could be what inspires someone to think that if Charlotte can do this then I could do it too. But they heard about my story from your interview, do you get what I mean? What drives me everyday is that I feel like I am living in my purpose which is to give as many artists a platform to be seen and heard. To give opportunities and hear artists say that they got their first 2000 plays or first billboard because of an opportunity that they were given is what drives me. Helping artists achieve their dreams despite how little resources or how far fetched it seems.
Growing up I had a lot to prove as a child. Oh you guys thought that I couldn’t do it? Well I am going to show you - Charlotte Bwana
How do you find the balance in not over extending yourself?
Here is what happens as human beings if we have something to prove then we tend to work really hard until we prove it. Once that is over, we just dont care anymore because we have already proven ourselves. Even for yourself you have reached a point where you couldnt even imagine that you would get to. I think for myself I didn’t find that balance until one day that I made that decision to work for my joy. At the same time it also took a lot of therapy which I encourage people our age to take.
One of my favourite moments in African music in recent years has been Tems getting nominated for an Oscar award - Charlotte Bwana
What has been your favourite music moment to come out of Africa in recent years?
I would say that Tems getting nominated for an Oscar, Burna Boy winning a grammy, the NBA afrobeats moment that happened a few weeks back. There is Davido performing at the world cup, Amapiano coming to life but my most favourite has to be seeing Uncle Waffle’s Coachella announcement. Those are all big moments. The moments that remind us that we are here. This time it isn’t that we want a seat at the table but we have actually brought our own table. So many African artists are also performing over the world and taking over the world in fact. Us being able to host stages like Afronation and Afrochella is nothing short of phenomenal.
Has there been anything that you have been involved with that has even surprised you ?
Bringing Audiomack to Africa and having it be the number one streaming platform on the continent. That is something that not even I could have dreamed of. Also partnering with MTN to democratize music and have people be able to listen to music for free. You don’t need any subscription or data all have to do is just listen to the music. Those two are my two biggest moments I would say.
Ending off our interview I was curious to find out how does someone who has achieved so much success process each moment. Charlotte replied in the best possible way with she takes naps.
