State of MIC was founded in 2007 and grew up into a well known audiovisual center within the Gambia in less than 5 years. The State of Mic project is an international exchange project that focuses on music, video and new media by a group of volunteers from Holland. The main aim is to educate young talented filmmakers, music producers and sound designers to elevate the level of the Gambia audiovisu
al industry and secure their own income by working in the Gambia. Since the start of the project, there where workshops on audio and film production and Festivals to promote local artists in The Gambia. In 2008, Guest artist “Raymzter” visits State of Mic in The Gambia to records a track and music video with local artists and release first State of MIC album with Gambians and Dutch artists. In the same year State of MIC released Grounded DVD (Hip-Hop magazine about the Gambian music scene) to promote young talents in the music scene. In 2009, another Guest artist “Steen” of INFECTED RECORDS came to The Gambia to record an album that features local Gambian artist with a Producer Robin Veldman. Following up the 3rd Edition of State of MIC Festival organized at Teranga beach Club with guest artist from Senegal, Mame Balla and Filipe Guilherme from Guinea Bissau. State of MIC work with almost all the young artists in The Gambia making hit singles and collabo joints just to promote the music industry in The Gambia. Sam, Mustic and Melvin started recording and making beats for State of MIC. The studio is well known for producing a genre of music where Hip Hop/Reggae beats are fused with local instruments like The Kora, Jembeh, Sabarr, Halaam etc. Early 2012 State of MIC produced an album for Gambia’s best AfroManding artist Manding Morry called ‘KIBAAROO’ under the distribution of Music-O records. The album is recorded, mix and mastered at State of MIC studio by Alie AnnOne Jallow. Singles on the album like ‘fele ko tele’ and Gambia la diya’ became major hits till today and changed a lot in the music scene. State of MIC studio also produced hit singles for young artists in the Gambia like: Gee ‘Freedom of speech’ – T-smallz ‘Na Gambia - Tam50 ‘Monor’ – Cyco ‘Numbers’ - Be One and HipHop allStars by various artists.
