Streaming website to support northern Ugandan artists by MC Wang Jok

He is our winner of the 2nd Small Project Grant 2020: MC Wang Jok. His innovative project seeks to facilitate a long-incubated one-stop website to enable local and emerging music artists to distribute and stream their music online creating awareness on the local arts industry in Northern Uganda. MC Wang Jok will partner with local ICT hub innovators in Gulu and Northern artists’ association preserving intangible cultural heritage and providing an opportunity for economic independence and bolstering of the artists’ career development during and beyond the restrictive time of COVID-19. BIO / PROFILE: In 1998 at the age of nine he got inspired by rap music he used to listen to from his father’s boom box. Growing up in Gulu town Ivan’s music development goes back to the engagement in different underground groups that were very distinctive and influential to hip hop and rap on the ground of Gulu. In 2009 MC Wang Jok together with two other artists founded Bila Wa Movement – a platform that uses the fusion of rap/poetry and live African musical instrumentals (Adungu, Rigi Rigi, Xylophone etc.) to make music containing conscious messages. Bila Wa Movement was known for their hit single “Lapiny” that was Produced and mastered by skinny in 2013 at Infinite Records Kampala. Mc Wang Jok is a Afro Hip-Hop performer, Mc, Rapper, entertainer, entrepreneur and a poet with focus on Luo cultural heritage. He has performed as a facilitator in quite a number of youth in arts projects example the AFRICALIA funded “Youth and Hip hop project Bootcamp” in Masindi Uganda 2017 and The American Embassy funded “Arts for peace Project” in Juba South Sudan 2020. We are very looking forward to accompany MC Wang Jok on this journey creating the ONE-STOP WEBSITE supporting music artists in Northern Uganda. Stay tuned via our GZK Social Media Channels!