Amplifihub partners with Airbit to give African producers another avenue for royalties off their beats
With the evolution of digital tools and platforms over the last fifteen years, it has become easier to create. At the same time, it has also created a landscape filled with much noise and much competition. Being remunerated for what one creates has become harder. We see this extensively within the music space with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of music makers churning out beats, my son being one of those, sitting with over 200 beats on his phone.
Established in 2009, Airbit is an online beat marketplace and platform where independent music makers can upload and sell their beats. In addition, they have what they say is a unique YouTube Content ID Monetisation feature built into their platform that enables them to collect royalties on YouTube videos for tracks that producers upload to Airbit.
On the African continent, Nigerian-based Amplifihub also has a platform for African producers and beat makers to sell their beats to a broader market. Ezekiel Olayinka, COO of Amplifihub says, “We currently have over 2,000 producers on the platform making beat for sales with over 2 million beat plays as at June 2021. A play count for each beat is after the first 30 seconds listen.”
Currently, Olayinka adds, “on the licensing part, we have producers from outside the continent tapping into the African sound and making use of our sample licensing feature from the UK, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, France, Italy etc.”
Amplifihub has now partnered with Airbit to bring the benefit of YouTube monetisation to their producers who, Olayinka says are “spread across West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameroon), East Africa (Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya).”
The intention is to grow both their pool of music makers from across the continent and the market for the beats globally.
Olayinka explains, “Though we are currently limited by funding and partnership, we are focused on organic expansion through users marketing and constant producer community engagement. For example, there’s currently no Afrobeat producer online forum or community, so we’re building an online community to aid the expansion.”
With the increased attention on African culture and artistry and the global penetration of music, like Afrobeat and Amapiano, it is important to ensure that those creating also benefit financially from their output. Hopefully, Amplifihub and their partnership with Airbit will carry this forward.
