Special shout out to my brother Gregory "Beef" Jones (@ogbeefjones) for inviting me to the Group Black party during SXSW IA last week. Group Black is a company founded by industry legend Bonin Bough to dramatically transform the face of media ownership and investment. Beef and I had been trying to link all day, when he ended up at this party and told my wife and I to come meet him there. He said "They have free drinks, a DJ and some Afrobeats artist will perform." Neither of us knew who we were about to see.

Then Yung D3mz hit the stage, straight outta Ghana. It was so refreshing for me to hear this kind of music being represented at SXSW and by a young up and coming talent who has not jumped on the hype train as of yet. I truly felt as if I was witnessing something special. Possibly his first show in the USA, and for a crowd of highly enthusiastic - mostly women - who were dancing and singing along. It was a really special moment for me as ten years ago when I worked for SXSW I took a couple trips to Johannesburg to meet more people from the African music industry and hopefully see SXSW expand into booking more from the continent. That is all easier said than done but in recent years Africa's presence at the conference has grown for sure. So props to SXSW for that.

I approached Yung D3mz and talked to him about his music and told him that I was a fan of Fokn Boiz from Ghana and knew their manager, Panji Anoff, and from there he could tell that I knew a little something about this music thing. I met his manager and his crew and invited them to come over and do a podcast, and they actually showed up and this talk is the result. It was a real pleasure to get this young persons perspective on Afrobeats and just life and culture in general. His music can be streamed anywhere you stream music and you should check him out. We are also joined on this episode with his producer Uche B, a force in his own right. Please tune in and tell a friend to tell a friend to subscribe and listen to Talk So Real With Matt Sonzala.

@yung_d3mz

@uche_b

@ogronc & @iamdjhollygrove podcast coming later this week!

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