Spotify, an online streaming platform has announced the launch of “Beat School”, a global video series, to celebrate sounds of African music.
Phiona Okumu, Spotify’s Head of Music for Sub Saharan Africa disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday, in Lagos.
“Today, Spotify has launched Beat School, a new three-part global video series celebrating the unique and diverse sounds of African music.
“In recent years, African music has been on the rise as artistes from across the continent have broken into mainstream genres with all-star collaborations and genre-bending fusions.
“To highlight this, the series brings together African music’s cultural leaders and rising stars to highlight three distinct sub-genres and showcase the full breadth of music coming out of the content including Amapiano,” she said
Okumu noted that Amapiano, which has roots in the townships of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, had taken the world by storm.
She revealed that Spotify data showed that 43 per cent of all Amapiano was being listened to outside of South Africa with Pabi Cooper, Mellow and Sleazy.
She said this was with Sub-Saharan African markets like Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ghana all ranking in the genre’s top 20 export markets.
“Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more episodes from Beat School that will highlight other sub-genres, taking you on a journey through African music and culture with some of the hottest African artistes and producers,” she said. (NAN)