Music streaming platform Spotify has launched a Sh12 million grant to 10 content creators who are telling Africa’s story.
The announcement of the grant was made by Spotify Africa’s Managing Director, Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, when she hosted top podcasters and artistes in the continent during the Africa Day celebrations on Wednesday in Johannesburg.
“This fund aims at amplifying the underrepresented stories and perspectives in podcasting so as to highlight voices from the continent," Muhutu-Remy said.
During the session dubbed Sounds of Africa, Spotify, which has only been in the African market for a year and five months, also highlighted the work of six podcasters and six artistes who are making their voices heard to showcase the diversity of African talent.
The six podcasters included two from Kenya - Mantalk.Ke and The sandwich Podcast - alongside Nigeria’s I said what I said, and Tea With Tay as well as South Africa’s True Crime ZA and After School is After School with sis G.U.
The artistes included Kenya’s Chris Kaiga and Nikita Kering, Ladipoe and Preyé (Nigeria) and South Africa’s Nomfundo Moh and Zoë Modiga.
Spotify Africa’s Managing Director, Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy when she hosted top podcasters and artistes in the continent during the Africa Day celebrations on May 25, 2022 in Johannesburg.
Photo credit: Courtesy
“This is the first of many such initiatives. We would like to highlight even more African creators on an even bigger scale so that the whole world knows that Africa is not just a moment, it is here to stay," Muhutu-Remy said.
The announcement grants comes just days after Spotify, which is the highest-paying music streaming platform in the world, enlisted Kenyan hip-hop crew Burukulyn Boyz alongside six other African up and coming stars in its prestigious Radar Africa programme 2022.
Since 2020, Afripods, a podcast hosting company that is seeking to build the largest library of African audio stories, has provided African podcasters with a platform where they can upload their recordings and distribute them on different players such as Spotify, Google podcasts and Apple podcasts for free while advertisers can pay to have their ads on the podcasts.
“Globally, the trends show that podcasts are going to take off in Africa. It makes sense that podcasts would be a natural fit for a continent full of storytellers.” Afripods CEO Molly Jensen told Nation in a recent interview.
Singer Anto Neosoul (right), Eli Oscar (third left) of Mantalk podcast and other participants dancing during Sounds of Africa session at the Africa Day celebrations on May 25, 2022 in Johannesburg.
Podcasts are still in their infancy stage in Africa, which is why there are very few reports that show indicators of growth and performance of podcasts in the continent. However, a recent study by Africa Podfest showed that the accessibility provided by podcasts is a key motivator to getting African podcasters started due to its low budget requirements and the accessibility it offers as an audio medium as opposed to visual media.
The report showed that Kenya has the highest number of podcast listeners out of six African countries studied in the report. The report also revealed that podcasts appear to be mostly consumed by male and female audiences between the age of 25 and 35 with the male audience being a large number of the listeners.
