The Team

Brian Michael King

Brian Michael King

Brian Michael King

Brian Michael King is a seasoned international project manager with over 15 years’ experience working at the intersection of communications and the social or economic transformations they can effect. Various turns in the 90s took Brian from being a college radio jazz DJ to training journalists at the first legal independent radio stations in Guinea-Bissau; to being a coordinator in a project to introduce the Internet in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He negotiated licenses, coordinated technology projects, and trained some of the very first Internet users. In response to the indignity of fleeing the Guinea-Bissau civil war, in 2001 Brian teamed up with the politically incisive singer-songwriter Zé Manel to bring him back to the national musical scene. Brian and Zé founded the label Cobiana Records, and they continue to produce musical interventions in Bissau today. As a specialist in information and communications technology (ICT) for development, Brian has served as ICT Manager for a coalition of 160 international development non-profits, and as Senior ICT Advisor to the Africa Bureau of the United States Agency for International Development. He has designed and implemented projects to use an array of communications tools for community development, conflict management, health, education, and economic development in over 30 countries spanning Africa, Afghanistan, the U.S. and Latin America.

Brian holds a Master‘s degree in Literature and Sociolinguistics from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master‘s of Business Administration from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. He speaks Spanish, Guinea-Bissau Creole, Portuguese, and Fulani.

 

Nelito Taborda

Nelito Taborda

Nelito Taborda

Nelito Taborda has promoted top-flight events for some of the most loved Guinea-Bissau and international artists for over 10 years. For three years he served as Director of Arts and Spectacle of the Ministry of Culture, and in that capacity assembled and led delegations to the PanAfrican Cultural Festival in Algeria, and the Gamboa Festival in Cape Verde. Most recently Nelito was Lead Coordinator and Curator of the second annual, 4-day Pindjiguití Music Festival in Bissau. He speaks Portuguese, English, French and his mother tongue Guinea-Bissau Creole.

 

Shivani Ahlowalia

Shivani Ahlowalia

Shivani Ahlowalia

Shivani Ahlowalia is a determined music missionary who has worked in international economic development for over 4 years. She is an active researcher into the intersection of music, economic development, and new media. Her studies culminated in a Master’s thesis titled “Technology and Change: New Avenues for Music Production at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid,” that she defended in December, 2008. Shivani was a member of a Danish lead crew responsible for making the first rock concert in Guinea Bissau in January of 2008, where she served as tour manager as well as artist. The production resulted in a cross-cultural, media-rich fusion of Danish punk rock and Bissau-Guinean Gumbe in several electrified extravaganzas around the country’s capital.

Shivani has served as Director of Artist Development and Special Initiatives of Cobiana Records since 2008 and is a co-founder of Cobiana Communications & Culture. She currently drives a collaborative project called Hip Hop Harmony for Cobiana, and moves within festivals holding capacity building workshops to empower artists and music industry professionals. Shivani was recently Music Supervisor for the independent Indian film, Patang.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration from Schiller International University in Madrid, Spain and a Master’s in Business and Development Studies from the Copenhagen Business School in Copenhagen, Denmark. She speaks Spanish, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Hindi.

 

Ze Manel Fortes

Zè Manel Fortes

Zè Manel Fortes

Zè Manel Fortes is a politically incisive singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and a co-founder of Cobiana Records and Cobiana Communications. Zè Manel is widely regarded as the most famous and influential contemporary musician to emerge from the Guinea-Bissau, and remains a cherished and influential musical hero at home. At the age of seven, Zè and some friends from boy scout camp created a band that years later would symbolize cultural revolution and Guinea-Bissau independence: Orchestra Super Mama Djombo represented the new nation to itself and to the world from 1974 until 1982. Zè left Guinea-Bissau in 1982 after releasing the scathingly critical solo album Tustumunhos de Aonti. He released three other solo albums:  Maron di Mar, African Citizen, and Povo Adormecido. Zè is lead composer and musical director of Bintou Were: The Sahel Opera, a work blending a contemporary story, traditional music, and operatic forms that has toured in Holland, France, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. Zè studied opera and piano at the Academia Amadores da Musica in Lisbon, Portugal and recording engineering at the Sound Recording Institute of San Francisco, California, USA.