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Business News Digital
Afrikaans label launches new digital platform in South Africa
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 16 December 2016
South African record company Coleske Artists and TV channel kykNET, both of which focus on Afrikaans repertoire, have launched a new digital platform called Groot Tunes. The new service sees much of the Coleske label’s own content digitised for the first time, but it will also offer music from other record companies, with the South African divisions of Universal and Warner both signed up to provide tracks.
Groot Tunes (“groot” means “big” in Afrikaans, if you wondered) has gone live in South Africa as a download store with streaming due to be added in the new year. The plan is to then launch both elements of the service in the UK, US and Australia, likely expanding the catalogue of music available as it goes.
The new digital venture follows the recent 20th anniversary of Coleske Artists, the label set up by musicians Arnold and Ewald Coleske. The downloads and streams are powered by digital music provider Allexis Music, which describes itself as “a global white label music platform for artists, content owners and brands, which uses the latest cloud technology to deliver a diverse selection of services on both web and mobile devices”.
Confirming the new venture, Coleske Artists Label Manager Paulo Azevedo said: “South Africa has capitalised on physical sales longer than most, but Coleske knew the shift to digital had to happen, and soon. After a long search, Allexis Music presented the only way that made sense: a transparent, scalable system that would allow us not only to enter the digital world safely with our hard earned content, but also to expand internationally. We know that when our media partners pull the trigger, it’s going to explode”.
Meanwhile Allexis Music boss Enzo Vailati added: “We are very proud to have been able to launch this innovative platform in South Africa. It was exciting to build such a consumer-focused site with Coleske Artists, and to work with labels such as Universal and Warner on the project. We look forward to bringing the platform to the UK early next year”.
