Downtown acquires mere music, Africa’s largest independent publisher – Diversity

Downtown Music Holdings today announced that it has acquired South Africa-based Shear Music Publishing, Africa’s largest independent music publisher, and that the acquisition, based on the long-standing relationship between Shear and Downtown’s music publishing division, officially expands the company’s geographical footprint in Africa. Madha Provides more access to the artist and label services available in the menu.

According to the announcement, Downtown’s music publishing, distribution, monetization, artist and label services will act as a single business within the business portfolio. She is part of a broader initiative, simply to partner with other downtown companies, including CD Baby, Gangstrast and Fuga. Will further increase the ability to receive compensation. Additionally, Shell and Downtown plans to develop new services designed specifically for the needs of African creators.
Free South Africa’s core clients include Caspar Newvest, Questa, Philip Miller and Perlotons; Other top African writers include Kenyans Southee Sol, Willie Paul and Eric Weinine, Nigeria’s Oreji, Brackett and Harrisong, Cameroon’s Salatiel and Ghana’s Stoneboy The only sub-publishing companies for Africa include Warner Chapel, Cobalt, Concord, Box Music and Budde Music.

“Africa is a potential market for digital music services because of its huge population, high proportion of young people and passion for music of all genres,” said David Alexander, managing director of Shear. “With the rapid entry of broadband services, lower data price points make the African continent one of the rising stars of the music business tomorrow. Our current relationship with Downtown encourages them to acquire strong teams, services and technology to improve the rich African music culture across the world continent and bring back significant value to African creators.

It will maintain its current unique royalty platform to serve its existing international publishers for purely African sub-publications and adopt world-class best practices in data matching techniques and revenue tracking.

“For downtown, as we look at markets in six continents and more than 20 cities that have a rich musical tradition, this is the key driver of our global strategy,” said Justin Califuits, Downtown’s chief executive. “The vibrant music industry across Africa reflects the diversity of this continent.” . We look forward to partnering with Shear Music Publishing to expand the artist and label services available to African producers and further support Downtown’s vision to create a more equitable and innovative global music ecosystem. “

The African music industry has expanded in recent years, thanks to a combination of digital platforms, high-profile collaborations between major African and international artists, accelerated adoption of smartphones, and demographic trends. According to the Africa Growth Initiative in the Brookings Institution’s annual “Vision Africa” ​​report, about 1.25 billion people on the African continent are under the age of 25, with the youngest population in sub-Saharan Africa growing the fastest in the world. Global music streaming services have rapidly expanded in the region with the strong growth of Pan-African streaming competitors.

Founded in 1996, Shear is a direct member of Africa-based royalty collection companies, including the South African Music Rights Organization (Samro), MCSK (Kenya) and Kosan (Nigeria). Other companies include Alexander Samro, non-executive director, director of music publishing house South Africa (MPRA-SA), and vice-chairman of the South African Musicians and Publishers Association (CAPASO).

Downtown has also bought AVL Digital in recent years, which includes the CD Baby, Soundrop, Dashgo and Adrive businesses, followed by the January 2020 balloon acquisition of Netherlands-based B2B music technology and services companies.