O2 Your Country Live ft. Nneka, Samini & Richy Pitch listings

O2 Your Country Live is a fantastic FREE annual live music event to reward O2’s international calling community in the UK. New for 2010, the African event presents the sensational Nigerian MOBO award winning Nneka supported by MTV Africa’s Best Performer 2009 Samini, DJ Richy Pitch and M3NSA.

Nneka’s extremely successful ‘No Longer At Ease’ was an album described as “the most invigorating, innovative and powerful release of the year” by the Independent, that gave birth to a bonafide hit single with ‘Heartbeat’ reaching BBC Radio 1’s A-List; and saw her awarded a 2009 MOBO Award for Best African Act. Amazon.co.uk included Nneka in their 2010 Emerging Artists alongside Ellie Goulding, Delphic and The Drums and having toured almost non-stop she is now making waves in the USA. SPIN have named her one of the 10 artists to watch in 2010, Rolling Stone gave a four star review and a David Letterman ‘Breakout Artist’ performance saw her reach her biggest audience yet. It’s a testament to the strength of Nneka’s talent that her success has grown by word of mouth, on the quality of her albums and the intensity of her live performance. She is not a big-label product, forced down people’s throats by marketing dollars. Her audience have sought her out because there will always be a demand for music that does more than just entertain, but touches something universal. As she puts it herself: “I do it in a sweet way - but I sing to speak the truth.”

Samini is Ghana’s most prolific contemporary musical icon. His smooth mix of musical genres is a melodious interface of the African music form Highlife, with the Jamaican music forms Dancehall and Reggae as well as the American styling of Hip-Hop. In spite of commercial and critical successes – accolades from MTV, MOBOs, Channel O, Hip Hop Awards and a closing performance at the FIFA 2010 World Cup have been recent highlights - Samini recognizes the importance of using his talent and popularity to carry messages of African unification, peace, development and hope across the African continent and in his country, Ghana.

Producer, writer and resident Scratch DJ Richy Pitch is already known as a prolific beat maker and remixer, having recorded with established artists both in the UK and the US. In 2007 Richy moved from UK to Ghana, West Africa - his goal was to record with local stars and talent and fuse the classic sound of Ghanaian music with his own production skills that he’d already developed in London. ‘Ye Fre Mi Richy Pitch’ was released in September 2010 and featured the cream of Ghanaian music talent including Samini, Reggie Rockstone and talented MCs such as Wanlov the Kubolor, M3NSA and M.anifest.

What a year 2010 has been for M3NSA, the multi talented Ghanaian producer, MC, singer and songwriter. Having conceptualised and performed on the hilarious critically acclaimed Coz Ov Moni (known as the world’s first pidgin musical) with Wanlov Kubolor, and produced the bulk of its soundtrack, M3NSA's hard work and clear talent has been rewarded with a recent MOBO nomination for best African Act. He has also just released his beautiful debut LP ‘No.1 Mango Street’.

Your Country is an O2 pay & go SIM that rewards free minutes to international mobiles and landlines from the UK when you top up every month. Ticketing is simple. O2 customers text a keyword to a unique number or visit O2Yourcountrylive.co.uk for a chance to get a free ticket to the gig of their choice. Winners will be notified by text message up to one week before the chosen event. On arrival at the venue visitors enter their unique PIN into the touch screen ticket machines to retrieve their ticket. Want to go to the gig but not on O2? Get your free SIM at O2Yourcountrylive.co.uk

• Text YC2 to 66102 for Nneka, Samini, Richy Pitch and M3NSA on 9^th Nov