Founded in 2012 by Dave Macli and David Ponte, Audiomack is a youth-driven, artist-first music streaming platform that allows creators to share unlimited music and podcast content for free, along with tools to help them expand their audiences.
The platform is focused on emerging artists and scenes including Hip-Hop, Electronic, Latin, Reggae, and most recently Afrobeats and other and emerging genres. Audiomack has played a pivotal role in the careers of some of today’s most popular hip-hop artists, including Young Thug, Migos, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, 21 Savage, Juice WRLD, and more.
By leveraging a hybrid combination of in-app subscription and advertising to monetise the mobile app, the global streaming service crossed 1 billion monthly plays in January 2019, after which it introduced a premium tier offering at $4.99/month and a monetisation platform to help creators on its service get paid.
In the past few months, Audiomack has also doubled down on visibility snd partnerships in Africa and with artiste]s leading the scenes. Because it is free, Audiomack makes a great fit for the African market and is well positioned to dominate the market–– where illegal music downloads and piracy account for the bulk of music consumption.
Audiomack is already available in all 54 African countries and currently tops the chart as the No. 1 free music app, the No. 6 free app overall (after Facebook’s suite of apps and Snapchat) on Apple’s App Store in Nigeria. The company recently announced its expansion move with the launch of a new office in Lagos and 3 new hires that will oversee operations across the continent: Adeyemi Adetunji (Head operations and commercial partnerships), Charlotte Bwana (Business development and media partnerships) and Olive Uche (Content strategy).
It’s without doubts that Audiomack has arrived Africa at the right time ––when Afropop and other sub-genres is experiencing a golden moment of global acceptance and consolidation. Although they will have to battle Chinese owned Boomplay, which already leads the market with 42 million monthly active users, Apple Music and Spotify, top US-owned platforms, both of which already have bureaus running in South Africa.
“Audiomack from inception has always been a key partner for the African creative,” Nasty C manager and Africa Creative Agency co-founder Colin Gayle said in a statement to Billboard. “The platform has been key in amplifying our clients…and has a clear understanding of the market and audience. And now with boots on the ground, Audiomack is poised to change the game forever.”
We look forward to see how this trio will push ground making initiatives and offers that African creators can build on on and altogether bolster monetisation and industry advancements.
