Darey Art-Alade on Entertainment Week Africa

Lagos has a rhythm unlike any other city in the world. On its streets, everything feels amplified.

From this atmosphere of ambition and creativity, Entertainment Week Africa (EWA) was born.

Launched in 2021 as Entertainment Week Lagos, the festival quickly outgrew its city origins. Now in its fourth edition and rebranded as Entertainment Week Africa, it has become one of the continent’s most important platforms for creatives across music, film, fashion, design, and technology.

What began as a city-based festival has matured into a pan-African ecosystem. Its co-founder and convener, Darey Art-Alade, insists that EWA is not another cultural event, but a movement shaping Africa’s creative economy.

“When we started, people were curious,” Darey recalls. “By the second and third editions, they were expectant. That shift in mindset showed us something, what began as a signal was becoming a movement.”

Lagos may be Africa’s creative capital, but Darey and his team quickly realized the stories, struggles, and ambitions of creatives stretched far beyond Nigeria’s borders.

“Even if we started here, the reality is we’re interconnected across the continent,” he explains. “A writer in Ghana, a sound designer in Kenya, a director in South Africa, they’re all part of the same fabric. The challenges are similar, the opportunities connected.”

For 2025, Darey outlines a dual focus: scale and depth.

• Scaling meant building tangible platforms like the Deal Room Accelerator (linking startups with Africa-focused investors), the Creative Job Fair (connecting musicians, designers, and filmmakers in real time), and the Content Market (positioning African stories for global partnerships).

• Depth meant going beyond spectacle to create infrastructure. “We’re not just celebrating culture,” Darey emphasizes. “We’re building the systems that hold culture up and drive its growth.”

This ethos of turning challenges into solutions is not new for Darey. He recalls 2013, when his team launched Love Like a Movie, an immersive cultural show so ambitious many dismissed it as fantasy.

“There was no infrastructure. No company or collective could execute the dream we had. So we did it ourselves,” he says.

The event’s success seeded new industries, experiential marketing arms, production houses, and collaborations, laying the groundwork for what would later become EWA.

“Everything we’ve done has been born out of problems,” Darey reflects. “Instead of running away, we embrace them. Each challenge gives birth to a new solution.”

So far, EWA has welcomed over 53,000 participants: young hopefuls rubbing shoulders with seasoned executives, global investors sitting beside aspiring filmmakers. But for Darey, the true measure lies in individual stories.

He recalls a moment from the festival’s first edition: “A young woman approached me and my wife, unsure how to break into film. We told her: just start. Take the first step.”

By the second edition, she returned as a filmmaker, screening her debut short. Darey smiles at the memory: “That’s what matters. That’s growth. That’s why this exists.”

Scaling EWA has required bold risks. The Creative Job Fair, for instance, is designed as a matchmaking platform where talent and opportunity meet. Imagine a filmmaker needing a score meeting a composer with the perfect sound, and striking a deal on the spot.

“These are new risks,” Darey admits. “But they’re necessary. They’re the kind of risks that create new industries.”

Any conversation about African creativity eventually turns to the diaspora. For Darey, their role is crucial. Too often, he says, Africa’s creative industries are misunderstood abroad, treated as exotic rather than central to global culture.

“Identity is key. The African diaspora feels closer to home now than ever. Whether they return physically, invest remotely, or create from wherever they are, they have a role. We can’t do it alone.”

To him, the diaspora is not just an audience but a partner, bringing capital, visibility, and credibility to Africa’s creative economy.

Darey speaks fluently in the language of investors. Africa’s creative economy is already valued at $58.4 billion, and the opportunity is clear.

“Investing in Africa’s creative economies is a no-brainer,” he says. “Investors want to know: where does my money go, what does it achieve, and how does it come back? We provide that funnel.”

For some, the return is financial. For others, it’s equity in the future, a stake in Africa’s cultural explosion.

“Sometimes it’s not only about money,” he adds. “Some investors want legacy. They want to shape what the future looks like. EWA offers that platform.”

Darey’s journey has also required personal transformation. Once an active performing artist, he has shifted into creative entrepreneurship.

“You have to starve your distractions,” he reflects. “Music hasn’t disappeared, but I had to focus.”

Today, his company Livespot Entertarium employs more than 80 full-time staff, nearly 200 contractors, and hundreds more on projects. His role has shifted from performer to builder.

“My growth is about creating opportunities for others,” he says. “Legacy is not what you achieve for yourself, but what you build for the sector.”

At its core, EWA is about closing gaps, in funding, infrastructure, training, and visibility. Much of the financing has so far come from its founders.

“We’re not doing this for profit,” Darey says. “We’re doing this because we wear the shoes. We know where they hurt.”

Some gaps may take five years, a decade, or more to close. But the work continues, not in words but in action.

As our conversation winds down, Darey chuckles when asked what it costs to run Entertainment Week Africa: “Maybe if someone asked, they’d also be ready to write the check.”

It’s a lighthearted line, but it underscores a serious truth, that building ecosystems is expensive, and sustaining them is even harder. Without investment, Africa’s creative future cannot reach its full scale.

Entertainment Week Africa is not a festival. It is an ecosystem, connecting continents, fueling industries, and nurturing the next generation of creators.

As Darey puts it:

“We’re curious, alert, and never stop learning. We’ll keep perfecting the craft. This is only the beginning.”