Songa

SongaThe music industry in Kenya has been steadily growing and it’s probably for this reason that Safaricom, one of Kenya’s biggest companies and the country’s number one telco have taken it upon themselves to launch a music streaming service.

Safaricom’s involvement in the music industry started a while back with the launch of Skiza Tunes, a ring-back tone service that saw artists get paid whenever Safaricom subscribers choose their songs as ring-back tones. Last year, Safaricom’s CEO, Bob Collymore, shared strong opinions on how Music should not be free because artists put in a lot of effort to “churn out melodious tunes, clever metaphors, rhymes and life teachings that are cleverly packaged in albums and hot mixtapes.”

Now welcome, Songa by Safaricom, a music streaming app that is meant to create an alternative revenue stream for artists and well, of course, mother green (Safaricom). “We are excited to launch yet another service that will provide an additional revenue stream to Kenyan artists and increase their earnings because we believe in working together to make great things happens,” said Sylvia Mulinge, Safaricom director of Consumer Business.

Songa

Well, to better understand what Safaricom’s latest product has to offer, here’s everything you need to know about Safaricom Songa:

  • First of all, the service is only limited to Safaricom subscribers, both Post-paid and Pre-paid.
  • The app is only available on Android for now or you can dial *812# to get a download link.
  • The app has over 2.5 million songs with a variety of genres, including local and international music.
  • Streaming subscriptions are as follows:
    • Daily – Ksh.25
    • Weekly – Ksh.150
    • Monthly – Ksh.499
  • Payment is only via airtime billing. Meaning, when you buy a subscription, Songa Bundle or Purchase your song, the respective amount will be deducted from your airtime.
  • The app does not work without an internet connection, but there’s an offline mode that will let you play the songs you’ve downloaded.
  • There’s Live Radio, including KISS FM, East FM, Classic 105, Homeboyz Radio and many more.

22 COMMENTS

  1. Will be interesting to see the numbers moved by local artists. Many times we hear for example, Drake had an X amount of streams for a particular song, so I think this will give us (if Saf share data that is) an indication of how well local tracks perform. We rarely get stats of how many albums local artists sell.

    Will give it a try , see if it will break into my Soundcloud | Di.fm | Apple Music | Traxsource | Beatport and Youtube circle….

  2. I am always fascinated with how Safaricom is “smart”. This has nothing to do with music or artists. It’s about getting people to consume more data, hence bringing in more revenue from data, which is now the new battlefront.

  3. Safaricom thinks they are smart? This is just a clever way of pushing data usage. I really don’t think it’s worth it if you have a good data package from competitors.

  4. its true I accept mny of us including are local artist,but with time i will achieve more than my style mentor king kaka.

  5. I’ve got Youtube. I only need data (of which I have – Telkom unlimited) to stream totally for free. Wacha Songa ikae.

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