Audiofrica Music App logo (credit: audiofrica.com).
Eastern Nazarene College Sophomore and Business Major Ronnie Temple, Jr. is the Co-Founder and President of one of the fastest growing music and entertainment platforms in the world for African Music called Audiofrica. Temple revealed that his main inspiration for the app came from his desire to make African music more accessible to African people.
“We wanted to create something for African people. Certain African artists are nearly impossible to find on music streaming sites such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Pandora, and even YouTube,” Temple said. People are responding to this effort. Audiofrica launched on July 29, 2017. Since then, the app and website have reached over a million views, their Facebook page has received around 200,000 likes, and there have been about 5,000 downloads as of January 15.
Temple recalls the backstory of how the idea of the app came to fruition back in 2009, when Temple met his soon to be business partner, Hassan Bakarr. Temple ran his own record label at the time called Flight Sound Productions. “He showed me a sketch of the idea for Audiofrica, and I thought it was sick. Then, we just started bouncing potential ideas off of each other. At the end of that brainstorming session, he asked me if I wanted in on the action. Just like that I would leave Flight Sound Productions and fully commit to this project,” Temple said. Bakarr is the Co-founder and CEO of Audiofrica.
Bakarr oversees daily operations, while Temple helps update the app frequently to give users an engaging experience. Temple also recruits artists through networking and partnering with radio stations as well as hosting live events. Temple explains, “I help run the company, create events, reach out to employees overseas, and make sure the artists are comfortable.”
According to Temple, they are still going to make more innovations. With competition like Spotify, Soundcloud, and Pandora still running the game, they’ll have to.
There will be two special account choices for people who want to listen to their favorite African Artists. Listeners can either subscribe to the King package, which gives you music with commercials, or subscribe to the Emperor package, which is similar to Spotify Premium in the sense of music streaming without ads. The difference lies in Audiofrica’s wider variety of African music than Spotify’s library.
Special features for Audiofrica include the ability to chat with your favorite artists in an online forum, advertisements for artists’ events for fans on the app, and prices set by artists themselves. Artists who sign will get paid for search commissions, streaming of their music, and partnership commission. The details of the contracts are determined through a sit down with Audiofrica. “It all depends on how long artists plan to sign on for,” Temple said.
If you don’t have the app now, it is available for free download on Android and iOS. Temple revealed that they intend to begin charging people $4.99 monthly for the Emperor package down the road. They wanted to give a chance for people to sample the unique set-up. Android gives the top 50 songs in African music currently, and the iOS version gives access to all of the songs in their current and widened music library.