In the past year, streams of African DJ mixes on Apple Music have experienced over a five hundred per cent increase. A new report in the American music publication Billboard magazine reveals that this increase happened from August 2021 through August 2022.<\/p>\n
Even as these mixes from African DJs gain prominence globally, Nigerian mixes have made astronomical progress rising by 3,000 per cent streams year over year, effectively becoming one of the world\u2019s top 10 countries for DJ mixes.<\/p>\n
South Africa is also enjoying major growth as well. The report shows that streams of DJ mixes from the country have experienced over 150 per cent increase year over year. Other countries are responsible for the 500 per cent growth that the report talks about include Kenya, Uganda and Ghana.<\/p>\n
Billboard says that \u201cthis growth has been driven by the explosion of African electronic genres including Afrobeats, Amapiano and Gqom, as produced by genre leaders including Wizkid, Tems, Burna Boy, CKay, Fireboy DML, Major League DJz, Kabza de Small, DJ Maphorisa, DBN Gogo and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Afrobeats, Amapiano and Gqom have become staple sounds on social media with the emergence of TikTok and streaming companies building a physical presence in African countries. This has beyond doubt cleared the path for African sounds to be appreciated globally.<\/p>\n
African mixes on Apple Music
\nApple Music and other streaming platforms \u201chosting mixes from a plethora of African dance music brands and curators including Soul Candi, Obrigado, KUNYE and The Balcony Mix Africa\u201d has also helped to cultivate the growth that the report shows.<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s investment from June last year, buying Shazam, the app that helps identify music within its hearing environment on Apple Music and Spotify is also responsible for this growth. Software like Shazam tackles the problems that language barriers and other forms of deficiencies that inhabits users from discovering whose song a DJ might be playing have made the hunger for African song a tad bit satiable. Now, users just shazam the songs or sometimes the sound, giving them the opportunity of multiple streams.<\/p>\n
David Evans-Uhegbu, the CEO of Party In The Jungle, the Lagos-based company that helps artists with music distribution told Billboard that DJs have always played a key role in the propagation of African songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have observed the evolution of African Music, you wouldn\u2019t deny that DJs have been a necessary link between a track and its intended audience, through nightlife, radio and DJ mix CDs sold in traffic, especially unique to Nigeria in the early 2000s,\u201d Evans-Uhegbu told the music magazine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin the last year, DJ mixes on Apple Music hasn\u2019t only revived the DJs relevance, but has also created a new and substantial revenue stream for DJs, and for the audience \u2013 a nostalgic, new and exciting way to enjoy music,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Read also: How streaming algorithms have become Afrobeat\u2019s biggest gatekeeper<\/p>\n
While streaming has made it possible with seemingly unbridled access to a global audience, it has also come with a price, which includes the shortening of the tracks that comes out of the space and most sounds in the different subgenres taking up very similar sounds.<\/p>\n
While this is an obvious growth for the music industry, it barely transforms into financial growth for the DJs who are indeed responsible for this growth. Artists who post their works on streaming platforms have lamented that the payment is still not commensurate with the work they put into it.<\/p>\n
But this increase, for now at least, solidifies the place of African sounds as the world enters this new decade further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This rise of Nigeria DJ mixes confirms the place of Afrobeat songs in an emerging music landscape\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":14715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,31],"tags":[7,14,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-14718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-music","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"yoast_head":"\n