{"id":9953,"date":"2026-04-03T23:27:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/youtube-director-black-music-culture-tuma-basa-exit\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:27:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:27:03","slug":"youtube-director-black-music-culture-tuma-basa-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/youtube-director-black-music-culture-tuma-basa-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube\u2019s Tuma Basa to Exit as Director of Black Music &\u00a0Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tLongtime YouTube executive Tuma Basa<\/strong>, who most recently served as the company\u2019s director of Black music & culture, has announced his departure after eight years at the streaming giant.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter eight great years at YouTube, I\u2019m taking a leap of faith and stepping into my next chapter,\u201d Basa wrote in an Instagram post<\/a> on Thursday (April 2). \u201cThank you to the Music Team at YouTube, the leadership, the artists, the managers, the labels, the producers, the continents, the city specialists, the uploaders and YouTubeLovers and even the Gen AI haters that made this run.. a great run. Murakoze Cyane, Asante Sana, Siyabonga, Amesegenalew, Gracias, Obrigado, Merci Beaucoup.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tuma<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tMeet African Music\u2019s U.S. Ambassador, Tuma\u00a0Basa\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Vans<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t‘That’s What This Is All About’: Kevin Lyman on 30 Years of Vans Warped Tour and What Comes Next\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Savage<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tNew\u00a0Levels Strike Global Partnership With\u00a0Virgin Music Group, Signs Hooligan Hefs\u00a0& More\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tBasa was born in Zaire (now Congo) to a Rwandan family, but spent his childhood in Iowa after his father entered the graduate studies program at the University of Iowa; he then relocated to Zimbabwe as a teenager. During his tenure at YouTube, which he joined in 2018 as director of urban music, Basa became known for spotlighting African artists<\/a>, including Nigerian star Burna Boy<\/a>, and helping fuel their growth in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\n\tInitially harboring aspirations to start a rap career under the name B.2ma B., Basa eventually pivoted to the executive track and landed music programming roles at BET, MTV and REVOLT. In 2015, he joined Spotify, where he served as global programming head of hip-hop. While at the streaming giant, he rose to prominence in part for curating the service\u2019s popular Rap Caviar playlist.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard<\/em> reached out to YouTube for comment on Basa\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n


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Longtime YouTube executive Tuma Basa, who most recently served as the company\u2019s director of Black music & culture, has announced his departure after eight years at the streaming giant. \u201cAfter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[387,2419,99,3405,94,389,1517],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-executive-turntable","category-genre-hiphop","category-genre-rap","category-music-news","category-streaming","category-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}