Tuma Basa

As Director of Black Music & Culture at YouTube, Tuma Basa is responsible for leading activities that draw on his deep industry connections and expertise in programming to increase YouTube’s engagement with the culture. He is also focused on helping artists and labels get the full benefit of YouTube’s direct-to-fan tools through product education.  

Prior to YouTube, Tuma served as  global programming head of hip-hop at Spotify where he was responsible for curating popular playlists for the service including RapCaviar, one of Spotify’s biggest and most popular playlists with over 9 million followers.

Tuma began his career in hip hop with a four-year stint in BET's Music Programming Department right after college. He then went on to spend ten years at MTV in music programming for channels and franchises such as MTV Jams and Sucker Free. While at MTV, Tuma earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. After MTV, Tuma helped Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs launch REVOLT where he served as Vice President of Music Programming.

Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Zaire) in a family originally from Rwanda, Tuma spent his childhood in Iowa and moved to Zimbabwe for his entire teen years. Tuma  attended the University of Iowa where he reunited with his favorite US college football and basketball teams, The Iowa Hawkeyes.