Audiomack, an online music streaming giant, recently toured Ghana in bid to further expose its music and talents to the world. In this interview with Charlotte ‘Char’ Bwana, Audiomack’s Vice President of Marketing and Brand Strategy (EU and Africa), she reveals the company’s intention to spotlight African talents to global appeal, and why it remains the most artiste-focused music streaming platform in the world.
Why is Audiomack taking Ghana?
Audiomack is the biggest music platform in Ghana with over 11 per cent of the population streaming music on Audiomack each month. Audiomack is also ranked number one music and audio app in Ghana on Google Play Store and iOS App Store, we leverage this position to connect with the vibrant local music scene. Our objective is to collaborate with artistes and industry players, helping to amplify the sounds coming out of this country to a global audience.
Since our launch in Ghana in 2019, we have felt at home and worked on numerous projects, including Afronation, Afrofuture, and partnerships with GHOne and Y FM, among others. In 2022, we honoured both Stonebwoy and Black Sherif with plaques for surpassing 100 million plays on our platform, a testament to their immense popularity. We have been intentional about promoting and supporting Ghanaian music, and we will continue to do so.
Is it limited to Ghana and its music industry or are there plans to expand this increased recognition to other African countries?
Audiomack has a robust presence across Africa, including Nigeria (over 10 million users), Tanzania (under one million users), South Africa (over quarter million users), and many other countries. We take immense pride in our continental reach and the opportunity to collaborate with artistes from various regions on diverse campaigns.
What impact do you see happening with this project?
This project aims to spotlight the next generation of African superstars poised for meteoric success. Our ‘Keep The Beat Going’ campaign amplifies the voices and narratives of emerging young talents across Africa and globally. The ascent of African music underscores the strengthening cultural ties between the continent and its diaspora. This campaign targets listeners passion for African music and new artistes’ discovery from the continent.
Tell us a bit about the various initiatives that Audiomack has planned for African creatives in general. It is usually thought that most streaming platforms and international record labels focus on the Nigerian music industry especially now that the Afrobeats is global.
As a leader in bringing African music to fans worldwide, we launched ‘Keep The Beat Going’, a campaign that led our global music discovery mission in Africa. In 2022, KTBG featured several African artistes across playlists, digital ads, plus billboards in five African countries, while empowering creatives through a series of creator workshops across the continent. KTBG 2024 will be an artiste-led initiative. The campaign will include an artiste’s playlist takeover, playlist covers, offline adverts featuring songs from some of the continent’s rising stars, social media content, Google adverts, push notification messaging and even Times Square, New York City billboards.
How is Audiomack focusing on promoting other sounds from African countries?
We strive to add significant value to the industry and have witnessed consistent growth in the African Music scene over the years. In Ghana specifically, we have witnessed over 35 percent growth on streams over the past two years, in May, the streams on Audiomack in Ghana were over a quarter of a billion. Audiomack boasts the most comprehensive African curation, focusing not only on established and emerging artistes but also the sounds and scenes from which these artistes originate. Our curatorial remit encompasses the continent’s diverse music landscapes.
We were the first to curate and create flagship playlists for the following markets: Benin, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Rwanda,Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo,Uganda
How are upcoming artistes captured for promotion on the platform?
For many countries where the modern music industry is nascent and infrastructure is lacking, our curation team serves as their gateway to the streaming world. This has fostered a direct link between our platform and aspiring artistes in these regions.
Our passion for a comprehensive approach to emerging artistes has yielded success stories, with our curation team detecting uploads, reviewing submissions and helping to propel them into hit songs.
Last year, following detection and support on Audiomack, JZyNo’s ‘Butta My Bread’, a manual upload from Liberia, became the biggest song in the country’s history and a global Afrobeats hit, amassing over 150 million streams worldwide. Another independent upload, ‘Goodsin’, from Ghana’s OlivetheBoy, also became a continental smash, totalling over 75 million streams on Audiomack.
Some of the challenges faced by artistes in Africa is funding. Some also complain about delays in receiving earnings from streaming on some platforms. How easily do artists access accrued funds from streaming on Audiomack?
Our Artiste Monetisation Program (AMP) empowers artistes to monetise their music and receive direct payments from our platform, making Audiomack the first and only Digital Streaming Platform (DSP) that provides this option. We’ve created a streamlined process that allows artistes of all levels to monetise their artistry, from uploading their first song to their greatest hits compilation and everything in between. We are focused on helping to build the financial infrastructure to enable artistes and copyright holders to get paid more for their streams, as well as more consistently and efficiently.
As an executive in Audiomack, how would you advise artistes to tailor their music in order to stay tops on your charts and playlists so as to earn better?
There are so many things artistes and their teams can do! The easiest and first thing an artiste should do is to download our Free Creator App. From there, they can connect with their fans through the messaging portal, celebrate milestones with our promote tool, and apply for monetisation, among other things. There is also an option to submit songs to specific playlists and curators in the creator app.
We encourage artistes to make the music that they want to hear, not necessarily tailor it to fit an audience. Our curators are more likely to place songs in our playlists or trending sections from original-sounding music.
After Ghana, where is next?
We are particularly interested in countries where we see Ghanaian music gaining traction. We’re witnessing an increase in streams of Ghanaian music in places like France, Germany, England, and the USA. Since our focus is to spread African music globally, these markets seem promising to target.
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