Malawi has new online music store

Owned by a Malawian company Raymka Group, Maluso Music aims to reach the rest of Africa by 2020 and is one of the fastest growing online platforms for selling and buying music, according to its website.

“Maluso has an internal banking system that gives artists access to track their sales,” Maluso Music managing director Mike Mkali wrote on Facebook. “Artists will be paid through mobile money or bank accounts. Songs can be bought using 14 international cards and mobile money through a multinational system that will integrate mobile money systems without direct integration.”

Maluso Music said on its website that the service would “gives artists statistics of how their music is performing and on the number of subscribers and downloads. Through their [artists’] account they can write and receive messages from their distributor and Maluso Administrator”.

“Every song uploaded or updated will still have to be verified by the distributor that the artist is registered to before they go public. In cases where the artist has issues with the distributor, a complaint can be filed to the Maluso Administrator via a message in the artist’s respective account,” it said.

Mkali said the platform was created with intention to curb piracy and grow the music industry.

"This is a digital marketplace that will enable artists and music creators to reap from their sweat by protecting their art from piracy,” he told MANA Online.

"We believe that artists need to be encouraged because rewarding artists for their labour would trigger a trickledown effect which will eventually benefit communities."

Mkali encouraged the music-listening public to sign up to the new service. “Like other sites, users will have to use their international money cards like Visa, American Express and Master Card, among others. However, this site is very different from others because payment of the purchased music has been designed specifically for African countries," he said.

Musicians Union of Malawi (MUM) member Anthony Dumba praised the platform for its attempt to curb piracy.

"This is a very big thing to us as artists because as MUM our cry has been that we have very good artists in Malawi but very few or none benefit from their talent,” Dumba said. “Artists in Malawi have been investing a lot in coming up with different projects but the outcome has almost been zero."

Maluso Music will enable artists to earn 70% of all revenue collected from the sale of each song. Out of this, 10% will go to the Copyright Society of Malawi (COSOMA), which artists can claim at a later stage.

Click here to visit the Maluso Music platform.