Joe Chialo: Last News

open letter from the Strike Germany movement, which called for a boycott of state-funded cultural events, claiming that the “use of McCarthyist policies” suppressed “freedom of expression” in relation to displays of solidarity with Palestine and criticism of the Israeli state.The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism cites examples including “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”.Strike Germany claimed that the IHRA definition was “increasingly becoming official state policy, effectively censoring criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionist perspectives from the German cultural sphere, furthering a dangerous false equivalency that ultimately harms the fight against anti-Semitism”.A post shared by STRIKE GERMANY (@strikegermany)As of Monday (January 22), however, the clause has been dropped. “I must take the legal and critical voices that saw this clause as a restriction on the freedom of art seriously,” said Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, in a statement (via The Art Newspaper).

The week of May 10, Universal Music Central Europe & Africa senior vp A&R Joe Chialo’s packed schedule included conference calls with the music company’s offices in Nigeria, Kenya and Ivory Coast. On the agenda: Universal’s recent signing spree in Africa, which over the past few months has included deals with Afropop singer Yemi Alade, Nigeria-based label Aristokrat Group and Kenyan Afropop group Sauti Sol.“A huge wave of entertainment is happening,” says Chialo, who also launched his new Universal Music Group Africa joint-venture label, Afroforce1, in South Africa in April.