Tunde Ajaba-Ogundipe — Speaker One-Sheet

Biography

Tunde Ajaba-Ogundipe is one of the most avant savant figures in the globalization of African music. As Spotify's Global Lead of African Diaspora Music & Culture, he launched the Afro Hub — the platform infrastructure that connected the continent to the diaspora and helped establish Afrobeats as a worldwide commercial force. He is widely credited with the campaign that resulted in the Recording Academy creating the Best African Music Performance Grammy category in 2023, having built coalitions with Angélique Kidjo, Don Jazzy, John Legend, and industry leaders across three continents. He has worked directly with Burna Boy, Wizkid, Asake, Davido, Mr Eazi, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Drake on various creative projects.

His career spans nearly two decades of executive roles — from Apple (2011–2013) and Paramount/CBS Radio (2007–2011) through WME/IMG, McCann Worldgroup, Universal Music, and Spotify (2018–2020, launching the Afro Hub), to SVP/GM at Sony Music (2020–2023) where he founded This Land Records in partnership with Sony and The Orchard. As an independent consultant at AV / Ereko Labs (2020–Present) he advised Spotify, Tidal, Sony, Breakr, and Apple. Most recently as Creative Strategist and Producer at Meta (2025–Present), he produced the globally distributed Wizkid & Asake "Close Friends Only" feature on Instagram — an intimate portrait of two Afrobeats icons releasing joint EP REAL, Vol. 1 — and the HUNTR/X (KPop Demon Hunters) Speed Round at the height of the year's defining cultural phenomenon. He has spoken at the White House US-Africa Leaders Summit, Harvard, Columbia University, MIDEM, NAACP Entertainment Summit, and ADCOLOR. Beyond music and tech, he co-founded No Wahala — the first African culture podcast with global reach, distributed across SoundCloud, Apple Music, YouTube, and Spotify with 200,000+ listeners — and through his think tank Ereko Labs is co-founder of Kitfo (Creator OS + create / connect / collab), Dara (African intelligence + wellness), AJO (African intelligence + ancestry, genetic testing and journaling), and Onile, Nigeria's first trust-focused African intelligence powered property platform.

Instagram Close Friends Only Series · Produced by Tunde Ajaba-Ogundipe · 2025–2026

◆ Wizkid & Asake — "Close Friends Only" (Dec 2025)
Intimate on-camera feature with two of Afrobeats' defining artists — their friendship, creative chemistry, and joint EP REAL, Vol. 1, including origin stories of "Turbulence" and "MMS." Distributed globally via Instagram.

◆ HUNTR/X — KPop Demon Hunters Speed Round (Oct 2025)
Produced the Close Friends Only Q&A with EJAE, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami — timed to KPop Demon Hunters becoming Netflix's most-watched film of 2025, with "Golden" at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Global 200.

HotNewHipHop — Word on the Street · Created & Hosted by Tunde Ajaba-Ogundipe · 2015

BK Tidal Wave — "Word on the Street" (2015)

◆ 100M+ views
Tunde created and hosted the viral street interview series that birthed BK Tidal Wave — Nenobia Washington, the iconic "Queen of Brooklyn," whose unfiltered love for JAY-Z and TIDAL became an enduring emblem of NYC social media culture. An early proof-of-concept that authentic, street-level cultural storytelling had massive untapped global reach — years before institutions saw it.

Signature Talks

Signature Keynote

Before the Boom: How to Spot a Culture Before the World Does

The inside story of how Afrobeats went from Lagos to the Billboard Hot 100 — and the strategic frameworks for identifying, amplifying, and monetising emerging cultural movements before the mainstream catches up.

Corporate & Brand Audiences

Cultural Intelligence as Competitive Advantage

Deep cultural fluency — not surface-level diversity initiatives — is the edge that separates winning global brands. Drawing on Sony, Spotify, Meta, and Apple experience across three continents and two decades.

Tech, Platforms & Streaming

Platform, People, Purpose: Building for the African Century

From Spotify Africa and Meta's Close Friends Only to building trust infrastructure for Nigerian real estate with Onile — how platforms authentically serve African and diaspora creators at scale.