StarAfrica Sounds 2013: Behold the Winner!

Out of the 5 candidates the public voted into the final round, the StarAfrica Sounds jury named Samyr Samson the winner of this year's contest.

Samyr Samson represented Côte d'Ivoire with his 'Guéha' title, a song mixing tradition and modernity.

The jury was seduced by the musical universe created by Samyr Samson and enjoyed his performance.

More widely, the diversity of the songs and the potential of the candidates has impressed all the members of the jury: Pierre Niboyet (Deezer), Oussama Errafay (Believe), Claude Bassolé (Musiki), Corinne Lozé (StarAfrica.com) and Aristide Kouevidjin (StarAfrica.com).

"The public managed to choose to highlight very promising candidates. I am glad StarAfrica Sounds rewarded  Samyr Samson, a young talent with the potential for a good career in the music business", Corinne Lozé (StarAfrica.com)

Pierre Niboyet said: "There was no doubt that we would want to be a part of Star Africa Sounds this year and help discover the very best in young African talent. Discovery is part of our DNA; our editors are continuously on the look-out for great new sounds from around the world that we can introduce to our subscribers in 182 countries. The jury ended up deciding on Samyr Samson, who enticed us with "Géha", a track that seamlessly blends tradition and modernity. I'm really pleased for Samyr and we're looking forward to helping him reach new audiences with this beautiful song."

The final ranking of the 2013 Star Africa Sounds contest is as follows:

1^st: Samyr Samson (Côte d'Ivoire) with 'Guéha'

2^nd: Papa Abdoulaye Diop (Senegal) avec 'Babylon'

3^rd: Bril Fight 4 (Senegal) with 'Toxic'

4^th ex-aequo: Mehdi Badri (Tunisia) with 'All the pain' and Linda Mauwa (RD Congo) with 'Ne crains rien'

The jury congratulates all five finalists, who gathered enthusiastic support with about 50,000 votes from the public.

Launched on the 15^th of April 2013 by Orange, in partnership with Deezer and Zimbalam, the StarAfrica Sounds contest promotes the young talents of the African music scene and was a great success - recieving entries from 101 candidates across 18 African countries.

The contest aims to give maximum visibility to artists coming from the African continent, notably through the distribution of their songs on the main streaming and downloading platforms.

Deezer, the global music subscription service, recently launched in Africa bringing people access to over 25 million songs on any device with just one subscription. Deezer's partnership with StarAfrica.com will offer artists an exciting platform to reach new audiences around the world.

Thanks to the partnership with Zimbalam, the finalists will have the possibility to sell their music on the streaming and downloading platforms all over the world, receiving 90% of the generated royalties, without exclusivity or time commitment: they remain independent, free and owner of their music.

The music videos of Samyr Samson and the 4 other finalists are available on

http://en.starafrica.com/music/top-5-the-finalists-are-known.html

Find out all the details about the 2013 edition on:

http://en.starafrica.com/music/starafrica-sounds-2013

About StarAfrica.com

StarAfrica.com, the Orange Entertainment portal in Africa, aggregates content from all the countries.

With more than 1 million visitors in January 2013**, available in French, English and Arabic, StarAfrica.com is among the African youth top portals, especially with its flagship channels: football, music and education. StarAfrica.com offers 7 thematic channels: news, music, football, sport, education, jobs and the diaspora shop.

Find out more on StarAfrica.com on the internet: en.StarAfrica.com
Facebook: StarAfrica
Twitter: @star_africa
**source Nielsen January 2013

About Deezer

Deezer delivers an exciting, broad and truly global music experience across over 180 countries.  With 10 million monthly active users, 4 million paying subscribers, more than 1.5 million Facebook fans and over 100 million shareable playlists, Deezer allows fans to enjoy music unconstrained by any of the barriers of the past, providing unlimited access to a catalogue of 25 million tracks, instantly available on any device - smartphone, laptop, tablet, home speakers, car, or work PC.  Deezer's mantra is music discovery, helping fans rediscover the joy of finding and sharing fantastic new music through specially selected editorial recommendations for every single market in which it is present.  With an international partnership with Facebook and strategic telecoms partnerships with Orange, Everything Everywhere and Telenor, amongst many others, Deezer is committed to bringing music to new audiences worldwide.

Discover Deezer on http://www.deezer.com
m.deezer.com
blog.deezer.com
Facebook.com/deezer
Twitter: @Deezer

About Zimbalam

Zimbalam, founded by Believe Digital in 2009, is the first European digital music distributor, dedicated to independent and self-produced artists. The vocation of Zimbalam is to release talents, pay creation and promote the musical diversity. Zimbalam allows any artist to make his music available on the main streaming and downloading platforms worldwide, then remit him 90% of the generated royalties, without any exclusivity or time commitment: the artist remains independent.

Available all over the world since 2012, Zimbalam has already seduced more than 80 000 artists.

Press contact: Juliette Charlot ([email protected])

http://www.zimbalam.com