ALT NRB – why a new Spotify playlist might be useful

The recent visit of Boiler Room to Nairobi has done much to open the eyes of the global music industry to the creative energy in the city. But 'scene' level interest doesn't necessarily convert into more sales, streams or plays for individual artists.

Spotify, or more carefully put, success on spotify, is high up on the list of things which impacts significantly on an artists global sustainability/success, with a huge percentage of global industry revenue coming from the platform. Independent East African artists have been able to DIY it on spotify through fairly easy and affordable means for a while, but the uptake has been very slow. Probably because it's hard to get traction without a big marketing push and without an existing large following or without having music played on global channels. Meaning that the effort and costs to get on spotify and promote come with a high risk to low benefit ratio.

2 years ago, you'd be lucky to count the number of Kenyan artists on Spotify on one hand, and they were likely to be the established artists with teams or labels who were placing their music on the platform. The whole spotify promotion thing is made more tricky for East African artists because Spotify is not available locally, so there is less visibility, 'out of sight out of mind' more floating around in the darkness. This inability to see what's going on properly and the small number of high end lists featuring EA music, and the limited material (many artists haven't yet made the jump on to the platform) - mean that the East African representation on Spotify is small.

On Spotify it's about volume, real volume, before any money or traction comes. It's also about playlists, the big ones are the taste makers. But then how do you get on playlists to get noticed, it's a kind of chicken and egg thing.

With the view that it's much easier to push a list than multiple individual artists, and that high volume list makers are often looking at niche lists to find new music, and that many artists can potentially benefit from the promotion of a single 'playlist', this ALT NRB playlist was born.

It's a start - a way of separating out the new music in Nairobi from the commercial pre existing. It's a first rung on the ladder for NRB artists who have DIY'd it onto Spotify. It's giving those music taste makers, the bloggers, the ones who actually go looking for new stuff, a filtered list - a way to start connecting with what's happening in the #nu scene. This is a long haul approach, with a zero monetary gain, and high risk of failure, but hoping that it will grow organically and that ALT lists for other destinations in East Africa will follow.

ALT NRB PLAYLIST LINK