Africa is in the house.” – Burna Boy.
These first lines from Burna Boy’s acceptance speech on music’s biggest night— The Grammy Awards— spotlight the significance of his “Best Global Music” triumph to the entire African music ecosystem. It was a culmination of all the strides that Afrobeats has made in recent years: a true crowning moment for the culture, and all who have supported its global campaign.
Many claim to have always rooted for Afrobeats’ success; but only few can show distinct evidence of unyielding support over the years. One of such voices is Africa’s biggest music streaming platform, Boomplay.
Boomplay, owned by Transsnet Music Limited, houses millions of songs, videos and entertainment news that connects music lovers with their favorite songs anytime, and anywhere. The app, which is also known as The Home of Music, currently has over 56 million monthly active users and has over 100 million downloads on Google Play Store.
The app, which won the Best African App at the 2017 Apps Africa Awards, allows its users to stream and download their favorite songs and videos, as well as subscribe to flexible daily, weekly or monthly plans to access premium features.
Boomplay is not just the Home of Music; it is also one of Afrobeats’ biggest advocates. With a catalog of more than 50 million tracks (local and international), Boomplay boasts the largest
repository of African music content, worldwide.
Since its emergence in 2015, Boomplay has been unwavering in its commitment to supporting Afrobeats artistes. It is beyond remarkable that from 2016 to 2019, Boomplay has partnered with Felabration, the biggest music festival in Nigeria, to promote the evergreen music of late Fela to
its over 56 million users in Africa.
Notably, they also powered the premiere of Tiwa Savage’s 49-99 and also made sure that the Afropop queen, completely shut down the city of Lagos. Earlier that year, they also supported Burna Boy with an exclusive private listening of his ‘African Giant’ album.
Furthermore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boomplay gave away 250 million megabytes of data to users so they could stream music online. This proves that Boomplay isn’t just interested in their Afrobeats’ artistes, but also their audience.
More so, they partnered with UMG East Africa to hold conferences that brought together industry stakeholders to find ways of growing and
supporting the African music community. During the conference, Boomplay committed $1 million to the support of upcoming African artists.
Another proof of Boomplay’s commitment to the growth, evolution, and promotion of Afrobeats is their investment in the first-ever documentary film focused on the history of Afrobeats, scheduled to premiere on the 2nd of April, 2021. The film titled ‘Afrobeats — The Backstory‘, was
produced by Ayo Shonaiya. It documents the growth, evolution and export of Afrobeats genre and features interviews from various culture custodians, artistes, and music producers.
As the Home of Music and Afrobeats advocate, Boomplay aims to empower the African music ecosystem until it unlocks its full potential. They daily strive to build the largest and most reliable digital music ecosystem for Afrobeats artistes in Africa.
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