Hafrikplay & Whip Music Africa partner to promote underground talent in Africa

Nigerian music has been taking the world by storm in recent years. From Burna Boy filling up New York’s Madison Square Garden with over 20K attendees to Tems making history as the first Nigerian to have a No.1 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.

Many artists dream of following in these artists’ footsteps and Whip Music Africa and Hafrikplay have joined hands to support them.

Whip Music Africa is a digital talent marketplace that connects African music professionals to music opportunities, services and networks. They leverage AI to help organisations scout & vet high potential talent.

Hafrikplay is a Nigerian founded artist-first afrobeat inspired music streaming platform focused on underground and African talents. It allows creators to share unlimited music and podcast content through its mobile apps and website for free.

Through this collaboration, upcoming artists can access a variety of offers that will help them accelerate their music careers. The first offer will enable selected artists to have their songs featured on Hafrikplay’s playlists and receive financial and strategic music promotion support from both brands. Whip Music Africa will leverage its AI technology to scout, vet and select high potential music artists who will most benefit from this offering. Hafrikplay will leverage its promotion and distribution expertise to guide the artists on growing their fanbase. This is the first of many more initiatives the brands will collaborate on to promote upcoming talent in Africa.

"This partnership brings unlimited and endless opportunities for underground talents. The magnitude of artists who would benefit from this is uncountable because we intend to phantom as many programs and projects as possible", says Hafrikplay Head Of Administration, Karimat Alaka.

The integration of these brands leads to a broad promotion of underground African talents including artists , producers , DJs , sound engineers and podcasters. Hafrikplay and Whip Music Africa have similar structural DNA for globalisation and exportation of African talents to the world by putting Afrobeats as a genre at the forefront.

“We intend to make both of our platforms a gateway for independent and underground artists to have a voice loud enough to help them achieve growth and development on their journey to stardom. We know how difficult it can be to make it as an upcoming artist, irrespective of your talent, and our vision is to make their journey easier,” says Melissa Kariuki, Whip Music Africa Founder & CEO.

This partnership creates an environment for upcoming talent to groom their fanbase, collaborate with other talent and strategically position themselves for further opportunities to bolster their music careers.

“In addition to offering these opportunities, we intend to educate the artists on the importance of understanding the business of music which includes learning how to position yourself in the industry and market your music. Artist education is a key pillar of Whip’s value as we quickly learned that there are many talented artists but there’s a huge knowledge gap. With each opportunity we put forward, we ensure to provide the necessary education around so we do our part in filling that gap,” Kariuki explained.

Artists can benefit greatly from joining the Hafrikplay community which features both listeners and artists. Hafrikplay offers unique benefits such as song importation enabling artists to easily upload their songs from streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud and Youtube. They also offer a points system enabling artists to earn incentives to further support their careers. Artists can leverage their platform to connect with their fanbase in unique ways from selling merchandise and listing events to blogging.