Nyimbo Za Zambia, The New Online Shopping Store for Zed Beats
We all see the numerous links that are thrown around social media by some musicians but we never really get quality music because either the upload was of poor quality especially if it was a compressed file, or the format just simply won’t play on your device.
People have been complaining about that so how great would a Zambian ‘iTunes’ store be? Specifically for Zambian Music? Great, right? Well finally it’s here, the Nyimbo Za Zambia website has been set up and is now running to cater to Zambian music lovers.
I spoke with Creative Director (or Head Honcho) of Black Rabbit and founder of the online music store, Muya Lungu, and this is what he said about the site.
Why set up the website?
Having lived away from Zambia for a little over 10 years I used to get frustrated at the lack of a centralized online store where I could legally purchase Zambian music and it prompted the serial entrepreneur in me to try and rectify the situation.
After I moved back to Zambia, we realized that need was greater locally to provide artists with an affordable alternative to distributing music as most artistes do not have the resources to produce CDs for retail. Myself and the web development team at The Black Rabbit Agency Ltd started on a project to create what at that time we dubbed the “iTunes of Zambia” and many months later Nyimbo Za Zambia was developed and in Beta (test) phase.
How does one pay for the music on the website?
The website was adapted to suit the local market and the easiest way we could find to enable the sale of the music was to use the existing Mobile Money services. This is just the first mode of payment that we are testing but are continuously exploring with the local banks for other forms of payment.
How do artists themselves benefit financially from the uploads?
The website is currently operated by The Black Rabbit Agency Ltd including any and all distribution agreements. The artistes/recording companies and the Agency work on a 70/30 percentage split respectively and this is calculated after optional costs and deductions.
Is it much cheaper to buy online on the Nyimbo Za Zambia website or walk into a store?
nyimbozazambia.com provides all parties with a comfortably affordable means of selling and buying music. It only costs the consumer K10 plus bandwidth to download an album from the website. Considering that one can buy data for as little as K3.15 for 20MB, in which you can download 4 to 5 songs, we feel the pricing model is a winner.
Currently users can browse for music content by visiting www.nyimbozazambia.com. We allow for free listening (streaming) but if a user wants to download and keep a copy of the music, they then go through with the payment options.
Are there any other services offered by the site for both customers and artists?
The development team at The Black Rabbit Agency Ltd are constantly working to improve the website’s functionality and service offerings. It is a relatively new concept in Zambia for a locally developed and owned online store but the uptake has been amazing in the 4 weeks the website was made live to the public. The purchase via Mobile Money also seems to be easy enough to use. We are hoping to make Zambian published literary works available for paid and free download soon.
So there you have it ! Our very own local online music shop. Nothing excites us more than all industries becoming tech forward. You better get signed up for that mobile money account ASAP.
Image Credits: Nyimbo Za Zambia
