If you are an upcoming or independent artiste, you’d agree that Altotunes is a compelling and surprisingly big deal for the music ecosystem on the continent. It is an online music sharing platform targeting independent artistes and record labels in Africa. From an artiste point of view, Altotunes not only makes your song available online to listeners on the African continent and beyond, it also gets your song listed on internationally recognized digital music distribution platforms like Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify. Altotunes brings the melodies of African voices together on one platform for all ears to listen to.
In an article published by TechMoran, Altotunes boss Austin ‘Stunt’ Osas says his company wants to
“give every artiste the opportunity to get heard in the industry, with the opportunity for independent artistes to be signed to record labels; for example, Cheezy Chi was signed by an American/Nigerian owned record label (Zebe Train Records),”
and that Altotunes
“plans to help foster more of those deals in the future.”
This feature makes Altotunes a digital marketplace for artiste to get their songs out there for increased listener base and sales; and “Yes!” artiste can track their sales in real-time.
How to get Altotunes
Seriously, what is music without anyone listening to it? The digital platform makes access to music available for download and streaming via its website. There are free and paid services on the platform; that means not all songs on the site is free for streaming and download. In addition, songs curated by Altotunes can be accessed on desktop, tablets, mobile phones and other internet-enabled devices.
The good
Altotunes connects independent artists to fans as well as record labels. Compared to players in the digital music distribution space – notably iROKING – Altotunes brings something a little different and that is facilitating a handshake between independent artistes and record labels, an exciting fresh music talent discovery pool, connection with fans ‘the music way’, and a wide range of platforms for accessing the service.
The not so bad…
Altotunes has the potential to become a major player in the online music distribution ecosystem. Like every early player in the ecosystem, getting artists to join a platform is a challenge. This accounts to limited available music cache curated as at the time of this review. Frankly, one would not be far out of place if one concludes that Altotunes is more of a cloud sharing service than an answer to Spotify. The absence of a really important feature associated with music streaming – the ability to create playlists – would have made the difference. Also, there is a need to create an “Altotunes Media Player” where users can also curate personal libraries of favorite songs and also search for songs of a certain genre or from a certain artiste.
In addition, there appears to be dead links on some of the album art. Extra public information on the website stating how Altotunes enriches user music discovery (without heavily hammering on how it is a connection of independent artiste with record label) is highly desirable.
In summary
The best part is that the startup is gaining traction. A lot has been put into creating this music platform but so much more is needed to be done. The user interface needs to be cleaned up further, enlivened with crispier banner graphics, and made more intuitive. All together, not too bad I must say…
Article written by: ChuqDennis
Image credit:Altotunes.com
