We had a chat with the founders of Africkiko, an online music streaming/downloading platform for Cameroonians by Cameroonians, and this is how it went down:
–How did the name Africkiko come about?
In as much as we are cameroonians, we intend to go global, but again, we need the recognition anywhere people use our services. So the name Africkiko represents Africa as a whole. We needed something significant and very unique.
–So far, music streaming of Cameroonian music by Cameroonians in Cameroon is not fetching Cameroonian artistes money, why venture into it anyways?
First and foremost Business entails risk which we are aware of. I’m not sure about other platforms in Cameroon, but anything web based is definitely not going to be that user friendly because mobile apps are more preferable. To answer your question. I believe artistes don’t get to earn money a lot first because they get to release for free on YouTube. I will take for example one of the most talked about singles by Mic Monsta “Johnny” with the hype of that song do you think if he had that on a platform where the masses could pay a fee using Mobile money (which is the most convenient way of payment now in Cameroon/Africa), just to listen he won’t make money? I watched a concert where Magasco, Blanche etc drove the crowd crazy in other African countries. So Africkiko will not fetch money only from Cameroon for our artists but the entire africa because they have the fanbase. Our artistes release on YouTube, but sell on platforms where Visa and Mastercard are required. How does someone without those(Visa and Mastercard), support thier own? Africkiko is a disruptive innovation set to remediate issues like this.
–Two Young Cameroonians diving into such an expensive venture, do you guys have sponsors or investors?
True this is a very expensive project and trust me it’s not easy. But again nothing good comes easy. We have no sponsor or investor but we are open to them. And we did not just wake up one morning and decid to jump into this. We talked and planned for close to 2 years before going live with our website and the building of a mobile app.
–How do you guys intend for artistes to make money from Africkiko? How would you guys make money from it as well?
Artistes can sell their albums, single to everyone regardless of where they are because they have fans who are willing to support them all over the world. With the availability of every method of payment; Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, mobile money, Google pay etc. Our artists will no longer need to pay $60 just to upload a song or album on iTunes. On Africkiko it would be free and ofcourse there will be a negotiation on commission for our services based on what plans they choose. And the rest of our revenue generation, you will have to be an insider to understand 😉
–How would Africkiko change the Cameroonian music industry?
Africkiko will change Cameroon music industry in several ways. There will be more sales in Cameroon and Africa, artistes will have little or no distribution problems, fans will be able to connect with artistes easily, with statistics from our platform we can tell which artistes or albums or songs had the highest sales, most streamed, most liked, most downloaded. All these information I believe is important to platforms like yourself @betatinz.
–Tell us about the app, when will it be launched and how different is it from other music streaming apps?
We plan on launching in April. But before that, we will have a serious test done which will involve a few selected users, artists, producers or record labels.
Our app will have it’s unique features like mobile money payment, being able to listen offline after creating your playlists, users will be able to navigate easily and we take pride in the security of users information, especially artistes. Exactly why every artist/record label account will need to be approved after vetting to avoid fraud.
Artistes will have the options to upload free songs or to sell them. And as we go about the development, we will consider recommendations or suggestions on how to make the app better.