Global platforms such as YouTube and Vevo, despite their popularity, are not giving African music enough visibility, according to Sinclair Al-Malik Obasi, founder of African entertainment platform Snookbase.
Obasi told HumanIPO this is due to platforms’ development and their inability to tell original African stories and showcase new African talents.
“African music is growing but there is no place for people to watch and discover new talents and video tells a million words. We’ve got YouTube and Vevo, but they aren’t giving us enough visibility,” Obasi said.
“When I say visibility, I meant a platform built for Africans by Africans and can tell the original African story on how creative we can be.”
He said the situation was different in Africa compared to other countries where people pay to download music.
“Music in the western world has to do with paid downloads, here its different. Music in Africa is about access not ownership and that’s what we trying to give to Africa and African performers [through Snookbase] – a platform to showcase African talent in HD format.”
He agreed the free download regime is not sustainable for Africa’s music industry, but said music would remain free in Africa while access would be the currency.
“Music will continue to be free in Africa. Here in Africa it’s about access and that’s what Snookbase will do to African music and comedy. Just few weeks ago, Nigerian musician Jesse Jagz released an album for free, Africans would just ask for ‘download links’ not ‘iTunes link’,” he said.
He said content owners in Africa would gain a lot from releasing their content free when more people attend their shows.
“We would help them spread that word across, so they get more people coming to shows and they earn better that way, although we are working on our royalties program because we want them to enjoy something for their creativity,” Obasi said.
Image courtesy of Shuttershock
