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Kenya’s leading telco is launching the Safaricom Music app for local artists to stream their music

by Milicent Atieno
safaricom music app

Kenya’s leading mobile service carrier Safaricom has announced the planned launch of the Safaricom Music app. That will enable local artists to monetize on their tracks by streaming to their listeners.

The Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore made this announcement while addressing a congregation of about 300 artists at the PrideInn Hotel in the coastal city of Mombasa. Collymore pitched their planned Safaricom Music app to the artists saying it will provide an additional source of revenue for the artists.

Collymore stressed on the fact that music should not be free. Given the amount of talent, time, creativity, and sometimes sacrifice on the artists’ parts to churn out clever rhymes in good tunes. He believes the artists should be duly compensated for the creativity that goes into creating a good track.

Safaricom’s Skiza tunes monetization option for artists

This is not the first time the telecom has tried to create a platform for artists to monetize their works. Safaricom has the Skiza tunes option, where you call someone on its network you get to hear a song playback before they pick up the call.

Skiza is great, but you need to be able to stream your music. People need to be able to stream and buy your full tracks. That is why we are launching a Safaricom Music app where you can put your music for sale. I don’t believe your music should be free, it doesn’t work for me,” said Collymore while addressing the artists.

How consumers stand to benefit

Admittedly, storing albums of songs after songs will make your device run out of space. Sure, these days there are mobile devices that rival even desktop PCs when it comes to local storage. But if you change from one device to the other, you are likely to lose your songs, and perhaps, more importantly, your customized playlist.

To the artists, it certainly provides an extra avenue to monetize their song. More money never hurts, as long as Safaricom does give them a good deal in the partnership.

Possible limitations to the app taking off

Safaricom despite its advanced mobile data services in terms of speed and reliability, it is not exactly known to be the most affordable network. Perhaps if the telecom would offer subsidized data bundles specific for streaming, maybe then, the music streaming app would register good traction.

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