Image Credit: Boomplay

African Music is booming on the region’s very own music streaming service and is helping to reduce rampant piracy in the region.

Nigeria based music streaming service Boomplay has been helping to lead a streaming revolution in Africa. They’re providing a long-sought after solution to music piracy which is incredibly common across Africa whilst also providing a platform for local artists to thrive upon.

At a recent global music summit – NY:LON Connect – Boomplay Managing Director, Martha Huro spoke on a panel discussing how regional services were providing something unique to the global giants like Spotify. Whilst speaking she revealed that 70% of Boomplays streams are made on African content.

The platform have been working closely with local artists and labels to bring African music to the forefront of their service, whilst also offering international music. Huru said: “Our greatest competition is piracy, actually. It’s not each other as DSPs (digital service providers). Most of the continent, they get their music for free, so [they think] ‘why should I buy music when I can get it for free from illegal sites?'”

Kenya’s president recently signed a copyright bill which will help to enforce laws against music piracy but Huro said that sadly, governments across Africa are not doing enough to prevent music piracy in their countries. Boomplay offer a solution in the same way that Spotify and other streamers did to rampant piracy in Europe, the US, and other countries.