When MTV Base launched its VJ search for South Africa, Nomuzi Mabena was the winner.
Now it is Nigeria’s turn to find someone to join Cynthia Okpala, the first Nigerian MTV VJ.
We caught up with Tim Horwood, MTV Base Africa’s creative director, who shed some light on how things were going with the search.
“Cynthia’s been an amazing VJ for us and we will still be working with her in the future, but we felt this was the perfect time to add some new, fresh flavour to the channel,” he said.
With people such as Big Brother presenter IK, G.O.O.D Music’s D’banj and rapper Mochedda all hailing from Nigeria, it is clear that the country has talent.
“Nigeria is such a key market for us and over the past seven years we have been passionate about exposing different genres of African music to countries both on the continent and around the world.
“With the incredible popularity that Nigerian music and culture is experiencing globally and across the continent, we thought it would be fitting to have a new face to represent this new wave of music and youth culture coming out of Nigeria,” said Horwood.
While everyone wants to work in TV, especially for a big brand like MTV, Horwood stipulated the criteria for the winners.
“The winner needs to encapsulate the spirit of a new ‘reimagined Africa’, they have to be entrenched in Nigerian music, digital and youth culture, but they need to be thoroughly familiar with the continent as a whole, as they’ll be representing Nigeria and Africa globally,” he explained.
“We are looking for someone with confidence, an ability to communicate well and a natural, individual flavour.”
If there is one thing Nigerians have, it is confidence, so this one should be interesting.
The judges’ panel comprises singer Banky W, actress Funke, media personality Toolz and Horwood.
“We wanted the judges to come from a variety of disciplines in the entertainment industry in Nigeria,” said Horwood.
The winner of this search is in for a cool job, but will also walk away with other prizes.
“Being an MTV VJ is literally life changing. The position inevitably presents a huge number of opportunities in the entertainment and business industry, There are also some other rather large physical prizes too, but we are keeping that as a surprise for now,” said Horwood.
• MTV Base VJ Search, Nigeria, (DStv channel 322), 7.30pm tomorrow.