No Signal Radio co-founder Jojo Sonubi has said that the online platform will find “a new to solve the puzzle” as it expands its reach into the music industry.
Sonubi, who led the team that launched No Signal last year during the first coronavirus lockdown, was speaking at the Music Week Tech Summit 2021 with Tagmix, where he took part in the New Tech Leaders panel discussion.
Online radio station No Signal came under the spotlight as a result of the popularity of its 10v10 soundclash feature last year, drawing in artists and executives alike. Sonubi spoke to Music Week for our lockdown stories feature at the end of 2020, while No Signal/EMI exec Jason Kavuma appeared in our Rising Star column.
Sonubi said the station, which was born out of his live events brand Recess, had hit upon a gap in the market with 10v10, finding “livestreamed piece of content where people could talk and enjoy black music”.
“I've always been fascinated by interaction, people watching things like Love Island or the football at the same time, I just love enjoying content that way,” he said. “So I wanted to make a piece of content that people could enjoy in that fashion, all together, striking up conversations. We worked out how to create that live.”
Looking ahead to how No Signal will evolve beyond the pandemic, Sonubi said he plans to incorporate his events background into the brand.
The platform we built has given us great to access and greater possibilities
Jojo Sonubi
“The platform we built has given us great to access and greater possibilities of what we could do with events,” he said. “We’ve always had big ideas for large scale events and we've tried so many things at smaller ones, I feel like the possibilities are endless.”
Though No Signal is in its early days in both the music and tech industries, Sonubi used the Music Week Tech Summit to promise that the company is here to stay.
“I’m really excited to be doing events again because there’s a wealth of talent that we have on the station and we can create little pockets of sound and culture for many more people than we have been so far,” he said. “The best way for our station to have legs will be to have the right amount of online presence, but also the right amount of physical presence, be that international pop-ups, one-off parties or events around the country, not just London.”
Sonubi revealed that No Signal is developing its tech expertise, too, with discussions ongoing about incorporating VR into is offering.
“We’ve started working on virtual reality video over the past couple weeks,” he said. “We’re finding out how we could use it in our content, we could do a VR cypher with the best rappers, or have hybrid events with a party, an exhibition, retail and a restaurant all in one space… There are so many new avenues now. It’s like a Rubick’s Cube.”
Read more about the Music Week Tech Summit 2021 here. Read a Q&A with fellow New Tech Leaders panelist and Ministry Of Sound GM Negla Abdela here.
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