Apathany
Helping musicians to fund themselves
Written by: Jaime Álvaro
Created for all artists, Apathany is a Mozambican start-up founded in mid-2020 with the aim of revolutionising, in the medium and long term, the national cultural and entertainment industry, starting with music. The initiative came from Zulficar Buraimo, a 44-year-old entrepreneur, and it produced the country’s first platform that allows artists to monetise their music through views, downloads and likes from fans.
Apathany’s online music platform needed only a year (2020–2021) to begin attracting hundreds of followers, among artists at the start of their careers and others seeking to consolidate their brand in a market as competitive as it is unstructured. The project, which was born in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, whose impact, particularly on the arts sector, is incalculable, aims to promote Mozambican artists through live shows, interviews, documentaries and podcasts. Monetising music through views, downloads, likes and number of followers has been an extra attraction for artists joining the platform – the only one in the country with a paid streaming service.
Streaming is the real-time transmission of audio and video data from a server to a device – such as a computer, a mobile phone or a smart TV. Streaming has changed the way we consume music for ever. Where once you had to download content or rent it from a rental shop, buy a CD, a VHS cassette, a DVD or a Blu-ray, or even wait for it to be shown on TV or radio – with streaming it is possible to access an enormous range of films, series, videos, music and more, in real time, from anywhere – as long as there is an internet connection. The most popular music streaming service in the world is Spotify.
Created to connect Mozambique
The essence of Apathany, according to its creator, is to connect Mozambique through the arts, and to help artists expand their work and fund themselves. “There is a lot of quality music on the market, but it is not being capitalised on, and we want to change that. We want to elevate our Mozambican identity, to be what we can truly be, but we are not, simply because we do not have that connection of synergies in the country,” said Zulficar Buraimo. “An artist came to me, a music student at the time. He showed me his work, which was of an exceptional level of quality, but he could not make it in the market. Nobody would open doors for him,” recounted the businessman, who sponsored the first music video of the young, marginalised artist and later, in 2019, took on the role of his manager. “Then I thought: why not help other artists besides Bakhil, why not help to structure the market, creating a field of cultural gravitation where every artist finds a space or a path to expand their work and fund themselves?” The answer was Apathany, created in 2020. Zulficar invested approximately 10,000 dollars (around 650,000 meticais at the current exchange rate) to implement the ambitious project, which goes well beyond music. As he tells us, “many people know Apathany, but the platform is part of a larger platform (Ihapari – ‘news’, in the Macua language), which brings together several services and whose purpose is to connect the makers of culture and art in Mozambique,” he explained. “Many artists are already familiar with the platform and talk about it, but we recognise that more needs to be done for the public to get to know it better. So the speed of our growth in one year encourages us even more to keep going. We are on the right track,” he said happily.
A new era in Mozambican music
In the age of streaming, selling music over the internet still has its advantages. But, as we know, it is no simple task for an independent artist to put their music on sale in the big online stores, such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon or Google Play, since to do so they need to be signed up with a digital aggregator. Apathany does not have the bureaucracy that characterises the large digital stores. The platform enables independent artists to promote and sell songs with the possibility of reasonable profits. Combined with a good marketing strategy on the artist’s own website and on social media, direct selling is a way of funding artists. “The main aim in creating the platform is to serve the agents of culture, providing them with a field in which they can make their work profitable so as to fund themselves,” he explained.
“The main aim in creating the platform is to serve the agents of culture, providing them with a field in which they can make their work profitable so as to fund themselves” – Zulficar Buraimo
For a market like Mozambique, where the value chain of the cultural industries is fragmented and there is no connection between production, publishing and distribution to the end consumer, Apathany, according to its creator, is an opportunity for artists to build their own market. “We motivate artists to fight for their professional goals and we instil in them that their success depends on the number of people they manage to reach and influence. Here (on the platform) artists develop mechanisms and methods of influencing their audience and, consequently, the market. It is important for artists to know from an early stage that their work depends on this,” he warned.
Monetisation on the platform happens through followers, number of plays and music downloads. The amounts range from 2.5 Mt (for an artist follower) to 5.00 Mt (for a fan follower). Although it is an attraction for artists, Zulficar says that the platform’s aims go beyond monetisation. “We want to change the idea that the platform is only for making money; that is not the essence of the project. Our aim is to change that mentality and that perception that what matters here is monetisation. The platform is there to help artists professionalise and become self-sustaining,” stressed the music entrepreneur, who sponsors a radio programme. The programme aims to promote the most-played songs and the most-followed artists of the week. It is presented on Kfm (88.3) by José Nhaca, on Saturdays, from 3 pm. “At the moment, we have more than 290 artists registered on the platform and more than 3,000 subscribers. We have set a target of 20,000 subscribers by the end of 2022,” he noted.
The Apathany platform can be accessed via a smartphone or a computer. Zulficar Braimo said that the technical team is working to develop an app for the platform to support Android and iOS, in order to give users a better experience and to boost interaction between artists and fans.
