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AROUND THE WORLD 3: Africa Gets MTV

For over 23 years young music fans in the United States have enjoyed MTV's hip music videos, reality television shows, and entertainment news. It has become a major part American television. On Tuesday, February 22, MTV launched a new television station to people in 48 different countries in Africa. The new station is called MTV Base. MTV has 43 other music channels, but this is the first one devoted to African music.

Until Tuesday, Africans could watch European MTV. However, that channel did not broadcast music produced in their countries. This new station will bring African artists closer to their audiences and will allow audiences to hear music from artists they would otherwise not have known. As in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and India, now African music lovers are able to learn what is happening on the music scene in their own countries.

MTV Base is not only a positive contribution to Africa, but it also expected to have a positive impact on music in the rest of the world. It is not often that music from Africa becomes famous outside of the musician's home country. MTV hopes that MTV Base will give African artists the chance to be heard all over the world. It will also give audiences around the world the chance to hear a new kind of music, perhaps one they have never heard before.

At the same time, there is some worry that if African music is televised on MTV, it will lose some of the qualities that make the music unique, and it will start sounding like music in the United States. Many struggling African musicians see MTV Base as their ticket out of poverty and into fame.

International music sounds are commonly accepted and can be very popular in the U.S. One recent example is in the artist Sean Paul, who incorporates Jamaican rhythms into his popular songs.

--Written by Sevonne Cohen

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