“South Africa’s music industry views technology as the enemy, where technology is often created as the villain.”
This is the ‘harsh’ reality that KasiMP3 founder Mokgethwa Mapaya shares about the music scene in the country.
Fortunately, for up-and-coming artists from South Africa’s townships this was also the reason that the former systems engineer decided it was paramount to launch KasiMP3.
KasiMP3 is a music technology startup that was founded by Mapaya about a year ago.
After resigning from his job, he decided that that would be the opportune time to start up a project that he was very passionate about. Like most entrepreneurs Mapaya noticed a gap within the South African music industry for a service that could cater for up-and-coming music artists.
So working alone from designing, engineering, web development, to the interface development: he set about launching KasiMP3.
Essentially, KasiMP3 is a website that allows artists from the townships to make their music available to fans that wouldn’t be able to access their songs from a music store, or on iTunes or any other online music service.
Artists register on KasiMP3 for free and upload their songs as MP3 files, provided that they have full copyright for the file. They then have the ability to share their MP3 download link via email or social media and earn royalties for each free download of their songs.
Mapaya has candidly spoken to ITWeb Africa about how he set up KasiMP3 and some of the hurdles that he has faced.
“There was a lot of music in the townships that I was not hearing on mainstream radio and I wanted to create this music platform for those artists,” he says.
“I had many ideas before the launch of KasiMP3 - initially I wanted to open a music store where people could buy these songs that was the initial process.”
He adds, “I wanted to create a system that could allow creative collaborations in the music industry without having to go through individuals.”
However, trying to get his new business venture off the ground and trying to get along with the big music wigs came with its fair share of animosity, he says.
Mapaya says the ‘problem’ is that music companies see technology as being ‘very unpredictable’. They are not comfortable with it they try and cut out anything that is not aligned with their business models, says Mapaya.
“I encountered the same problems that upcoming artists go through whenever they try to put their products through mainstream gatekeepers,” Mapaya said.
“They expected me to take the same routes like go through gatekeepers to meet certain individuals and I had a problem with that.
“In IT you just develop a brilliant product and everyone would thank you for that – people don’t ask you do you know so and so and I found that these were not real hurdles to actually skip and I had a problem with that,” he continued.
According to Mapaya the country’s music industry has what he says is a ‘monopoly objective’ to keep things the same.
He further says that the reluctance to adopt technology as a strategic component is not only bad for the industry but could have long lasting effects.
“There is no room for innovation in the music industry,” which is what led to some of the hurdles that he says he experienced.
“When they saw that there is a platform like KasiMP3 the reaction from the conventional music industry was to find a way to try and shut us down,” he says.
Mapaya adds, “That was a massive challenge because they were in the music industry for longer than me so they had the contacts to make life difficult for me and I had to still learn through trial and error.”
Despite its rocky start, KasiMP3 managed to go viral in the first official launch month, which Mapaya describes as a dream come true. So far the former engineer’s brainchild has managed to sign up as many as 52,000 users on KasiMP3.
“KasiMP3 has the potential to be a mainstream service and become a platform that will quiet the music industry by making real and long last stars for South Africa,” he says confidently of his business.
He also plans to continue to grow KasiMP3 but not lose sight of it being a development platform for artists, he said.
“I want this platform to be good platform for artists I don’t just want to create a trillion dollar empire. The plan is for the platform to make real and long lasting stars for South Africa,” he explained.
The driven entrepreneur says he wants the music website to not only produce the next Justin Bieber but an artist that would be relevant in the next couple of years and be able to maintain longevity.
“I want to help out stars that will fulfil a critical role in the music industry the platform is not just about talking numbers but a platform that is for the success of stars,” says Mapaya.
The artists must have the capacity to deal with massive fame and challenges, he concludes.
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