Monday, June 1, 2020

Apple Music adds Africa Now Radio and producer playlists | Music Ally

Apple Music’s growing focus on African music and artists continues, with a new show on its Beats 1 radio station called ‘Africa Now Radio‘. Hosted by Nigerian DJ Cuppy, it’s a spin-off from Apple Music’s ‘Africa Now‘ playlist, and will be playing new African music across genres including Afrobeats, highlife, alté, amapiano and kuduro. The show will air every Sunday, starting this weekend, with listeners encouraged to save tracks they like to their own playlists.

The news follows a recent interview in which Apple’s artist-development team Platoon talked about its expansion in Africa, offering advances, distribution and support to 88 musicians from across the continent.

In separate Apple Music news, it’s also launching a new playlist series called ‘Behind the Boards’, celebrating the work of producers including Fraser T. Smith (Adele, Stormzy, Sam Smith), Nile Rodgers (Chic, Daft Punk, David Bowie) and Catherine Marks (Foals, Interpol). It sits within Apple Music’s existing ‘Songwriters’ hub.

And one final Apple Music story today: check out MBW’s piece on its share of hip-hop audio streams in the US: “45% dating back to 2019” and often even higher shares of first-week streams for big hip-hop albums.

Stuart Dredge


[from https://ift.tt/2vCxqPg]

No comments: