01Access
Scholarships and living support so the next generation can study — and stay.
Live from the archive
Amplify●Support●Create●Listen●Amplify●Support●Create●Listen●
The Foundation
Every young Black voice deserves a room, a studio, a stage, an audience — and the freedom to sound like no one else.
Sade Blaq Music Foundation is a registered non-profit working with artists from Ibadan, Lagos and the wider diaspora. We remove the barriers between talent and a career — money, access, mentorship and time — and we make sure the music of today is preserved for tomorrow.
02Creation
Direct grants for albums, scores and commissions, with no strings attached.
03Legacy
Residencies, documentation and archives that keep Black musical history alive.
About Sade Blaq
Sade Blaq is not just an event. It is a movement of music, culture and impact.
Sade Blaq began as a premium live experience — concerts where community sits in the front row. A decade of Blaq excellence later, that experience becomes a foundation: celebrating growth, impact and musical mastery over ten years, and turning the stage into something permanent.
In 2026 the NGO is officially unveiled at the launch, with the charter read, the mission and vision stated, and the first Sound Fellows announced in the same room that heard them perform.
DecadeTen years of Blaq excellence
LaunchNGO unveiling, 2026
HomeIbadan · Nigeria
FormatCulture · Concert · Impact
Entertainment with purpose
Every concert is a fundraiser and every fundraiser is a concert. The queue for tickets is the queue for change.
A name you can stand behind
A decade of Blaq excellence in one night: the music, the mastery and the brand built on both.
Impact that outlasts the encore
The launch is the beginning, not the finale — grants, residencies and archives carried by the movement.
How it works
Four doors.
One movement.
We fund the work, not the paperwork
Applications open once a year and take minutes: no genre, no school, no gatekeeping. Ten artists are chosen on the work alone, by a panel of working musicians. Fellows receive production budget, studio time and a year of mentorship — with no deliverables and no strings.
Mentorship, matched to the music
Every fellow is matched with a mentor from the field — producers, conductors, archivists — and meets on the work's terms, not the market's. Quarterly gatherings in Ibadan keep the cohort in the same room, and public work-in-progress sessions mean the process is shared, not hidden.
The studio, the room, the stage
Funded artists get the three things a career actually needs: studio time with engineers, a room to work in (the Listening Room, the Open Studio, the Choir Salons), and a stage — the annual Fellows Showcase on the Jogor Centre floor, where the year ends in premieres.
Every contribution published
Partners fund programs, never programming. No partner chooses an artist, and every contribution is listed in the same annual report as the grants it made possible — public, audited, and boring on purpose. Boring is the point: nobody should have to ask where the money went.
Activities
Where the work
happens
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11 Oct
Blaq Xperience 2026 — launch concert & NGO unveiling
A premium experience featuring the Sade Blaq Music Foundation launch and a live concert — culture, concert and community impact under one roof.
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24 Oct
The Listening Room — first public session
Our free community archive opens its doors: 800+ hours of digitised Black recordings, listening sessions and conversations with the people who made them.
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08 Nov
Community Sounds — workshop weekend
Free weekend of instrument builds, open mics and studio basics for the youth programs that seed the next generation of Blaq excellence.
-
12 Dec
Sound Fellows Showcase — first cohort
The inaugural fellows close their year with a live showcase: ten artists, ten premieres, one night of the new sound.
-
29 Aug
Blaq Radio — launch week
Two weeks of 24-hour streaming: interviews with partners, archive premieres and the sounds that carried the movement for ten years.
-
26 Jul
Community Choir partnership launch
Twelve choirs, one stage: our first partner programme with neighbourhood congregations across Ibadan — free rehearsals, paid leads, shared stage.
Writeups
The decade
Ten years of
Blaq excellence
-
2016
The first Blaq night
A listening party in an Ibadan compound that refused to end — the sound that started the movement.
-
2018
The choirs gather
Free rehearsals begin across five neighbourhood churches — twelve choirs, one shared stage.
-
2019
Jogor Centre, first full evening
The movement takes the professional stage for a full night of Blaq acts — and the quarter fills.
-
2021
The tape archive begins
The first 100 hours of community recordings are digitised, catalogued and played back to their owners.
-
2023
Blaq Radio goes weekly
A weekly community show — archive premieres, choir recordings, and interviews with the people who made them.
-
2025
The decade countdown
Ten years of the movement are marked in one continuous live session, from the first tape to the last.
-
2026
The foundation is unveiled
The charter is read, the first Sound Fellows are announced and the Listening Room opens its doors.
Impact, counted
0
Artists funded
0
Of Blaq excellence
0
Study grants awarded
0
Residencies hosted
In their words
What the work
unlocks
Contact
Come to the room. Or write to the desk. The door is open either way.
Email
hello@sadeblaqmusicfoundation.com
Instagram
@sadeblaqmusic
YouTube
Sade Blaq Music Foundation
Studio
Jogor Centre, Ibadan — Mon–Sat, by appointment
Press, partnerships and choir invitations: hello@sadeblaqmusicfoundation.com · We reply within three working days.