Hi, Quartz Africa readers!
Let the music play
This week Apple rolled out its Apple Music service to 17 more African countries making it available in a total of 30 countries on the continent.
Apple’s move helps grow digital revenues globally as Africa’s digital media consumption habits change. But it’s also worth noting because it recognizes the growing influence of African music and entertainment in driving that expansion. As part of its announcement it made a point of celebrating its Afrobeats’ playlists for example.
While Spotify is the world’s leading digital music service, it is only present in five African countries—just one in Sub Saharan Africa: South Africa. This explains why African music business insiders say it is a distant No.3 or 4 behind Apple Music and YouTube in terms of generating revenues for African artists. You can rest assured Spotify, which has also ramped up its African music playlists, will be doing more on the ground (digitally speaking).
As we’ve often pointed out both the African music and TV/film industries are being re-built for the digital age as they have been elsewhere. So while major international companies are able to fund major expansion or acquisitions, they also need key relationships in very fragmented sectors like the African music label business.
Warner Music Group, the world’s third largest music company, this week said it has invested in Johannesburg-based Africori, a digital music distribution, music rights management and artist development company which represents 6,500 African artists through its relationship with hundreds of artist and independent label clients.
Africori founder Yoel Kenan says the big opportunity for digital music is still coming as soon as major telcos figure out how to offer affordable mass market music services beyond the “premium” offers of a Spotify or Apple Music. “That’s when we expand from say best case scenario of 10 million users to 100 million.”
It’s worth pointing out distribution in itself is important but not everything here. Boomplay, the music service created in partnership with Transsion, the biggest phone seller in Africa, and Netease, the Chinese software company. But even though Boomplay is built-in on the market-leading phone maker’s brands it hasn’t yet become a top driver of digital revenue for local music labels, say music industry insiders.
— Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor
Stories from this week
Africa’s second largest airline may be grounded for good. The economic effects of the ongoing coronavirus crisis may yet prove the death knell for the struggling debt-laden South African Airways. The rejection of its request for additional funding from the government has left the future of the 86-year old airline hanging in the balance, explains Brian Browdie.
South Africa is deploying its army to enforce its lockdown while ramping up social spending. In one of the largest army deployments in the country’s history, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa moved to deploy 70,000 members of the South African National Defence Force to enforce an ongoing coronavirus lockdown. As Sarah Wild reports, the move also comes as Ramaphosa promises a $26 billion relief package to ease social unrest.
China-Africa trade took a big hit in the first quarter. There’s growing evidence of the damaging economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak on China-Africa trade based on data from the Chinese government. After 16 years of growth in trade volumes, a drop in manufacturing and exports has set back trade between Africa and its largest trading partner, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu reports.
Ordinary Nigerians are filling the country’s major social welfare gaps amid coronavirus. With low-income households battling hunger during an ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the need for food and cash relief has grown critical in Nigeria. Given the inadequacy of the government’s social relief plans, Nigerians are assuaging the need through newly established food banks and anonymous online donation platforms, Yomi Kazeem explains.
A Chinese YouTuber shows how China’s political system can end up with Africans being mistreated. Shanghai-based YouTuber Simon Yu discusses the discriminatory incidents against African migrants in Guangzhou, which have threatened China’s diplomatic relationships with African countries. Yu says these types of upheavals are familiar for ordinary Chinese people because government officials are often first and foremost focused on delivering economic results and political stability for their superiors rather than for a Western-style electorate.
Actually, it’s vital Africans take part in research and trials for a coronavirus vaccine. There’s been an understandable furious reaction to suggestions Africans should be experimented on for a coronavirus cure. But Wits University’s Gale Ure points out it is crucial for African scientists to take a key role in the search and trials for a coronavirus vaccine done under recognized international standards to avoid Africa getting left behind.
Dealmaker
A Nigerian business media startup is getting seed investment from Omidyar’s Luminate. Stears, a Nigerian economy and business publication, raised $600,000 in seed funding with participation from Luminate, part of the Omidyar Network in 2018. Luminate invested alongside two unnamed Nigerian venture capital funds.
•Disruptech, an Egypt-focused $25 million fund for fintech startups, has backed Khazna, a Cairo-based company which offers cash advances to client employees and Brimore, a distribution company which offers its clients a wider reach through its nationwide network of sales agents.
•Bundle, a social payments app for cash and cryptocurrencies, raised $450,000 in a pre-seed round from global blockchain company, Binance.
Chart of the Week
Remittances from African migrants to their home countries will plunge by nearly a quarter this year. Sub Saharan African countries will see remittance flows drop by 23.1% in 2020 in the wake of the Covid-19 economic crisis. It’ll disproportionately affect countries—including South Sudan, Lesotho and The Gambia—where remittances make up a significant share of GDP.
Quartz Membership
Covid-19 could change how dependent the world is on China for drugs. A bottle of drugs with an American label may be distributed by a US-based company, but the starting chemicals that make the drug effective often come from one country—China. This reliance on China has long been a concern, but the world had largely accepted the trade-off between consolidation risks and cost: Until Covid-19.
Other things we liked
“You’re not welcome.” Rap’s racial divide in France. At last month’s Victoires de la Musique, France’s equivalent of the Grammys, not one of the African-origin French rappers tearing up the charts for the last year was nominated in an album, artist or song category. For The Guardian, Michael Oliver dives into the French music industry to learn how senior figures have actively worked to stymie the recognition of the country’s most popular genre.
Kiswahili could be the key to unleashing the full potential of Sub-Saharan Africa. Many African children in Sub-Saharan Africa are multi-lingual even before they start school, but one disadvantage is this “taxes the African child with the additional burden of mastering a language of instruction at a stage his compatriot in the West will have already started receiving practical knowledge.” Stanley Gazemba argues in The Elephant that Kiswahili, if widely promoted, could remove the artificial barriers imposed by imperial powers.
ICYMI
MIT Africa Covid-19 Challenge. A virtual hackathon for teams of African innovations to develop solutions to address the Covid-19 crisis on the continent. Winning teams will receive technical and organizational support. (April 27)
Google Africa Developer Scholarship Program. Developers can apply to the program which supports software developers in Africa on Android, Google Cloud and Mobile Web skills development tracks. (May 13)
Université Paris-Saclay International Master’s Scholarship Program. Scholarships are on offer for highly-qualified international students looking to develop an academic project through research up to the doctoral level. (May 27)
*This brief was produced while listening to Gambia by Sona Jobarteh (The Gambia)
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