Good Afromusic, in your inbox

Products
1

Hi All

Just to note, this is not another music app/blog/archiving site/blank.

I started this at the beginning of the year (with a small beta with friends last year) because I felt current music entities are putting too much focus on the secondary things.

Your favourite afromusic blog/app is too focused on number of clicks, website traffic, number of users, number of plays, downloads, payment, money etc.

But what about the product? We all deserve good music and I think this should be the main focus.

The Main Gist
It is called Less Than 3 Percent (thereā€™s a back story to the name). But essentially:

Less than 3 Percent sources the best afromusic weekly so you donā€™t have to.

Key Things to note:

  • The music comes to you rather than the other way round
  • You only receive a handful of the very best songs weekly and the rest (noise) is ignored.
  • It is free of Popular Artist Bias therefore mainstream and upcoming artists get equal exposure.

You can sign up here if you are interested. Or check out previous playlists.

Side note

Still have a long way to go due to my capability gap. Currently, music is manually curated with help from other people to handpick the best ones. But eventually the goal is to make it automated or semi-automated but there are some challenges around this.

However I believe this is a good starting point which is why I put it out.
P.S. This is not a startup. Iā€™m not trying to monetise it. I already work so my goal here is to essentially change the conversation.

Here is me using Simon Sinekā€™s ā€œStart with Whyā€ to refine my thoughts.

The Why

Less Than 3 Percent aims to bring to the forefront what should matter the most regarding music in Africa- Really Good Songs.

LT3 wants to change the current conversation, or at least bring attention to the quality of the music rather than being focused on other secondary things (website traffic, clicks and Youtube views etc).

The de facto question at all times should be: Is this song good? Then the conversation gets exciting.

The How

The way we bring the subject to the forefront is by providing people with the very best Afromusic released in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The What

We just happen to send the music by email every week to subscribers.

This is where you sign up if you are interested. Alt Link

So Radar what do you think?
(prepares for the onslaught)

8 Likes
2

I like this. I like this very much.

Your site is also on point. Straight to the point, suited for its current purpose.

A little bit turned off towards the manual curation (I wonā€™t be signing up) but I understand it. When automation is available I can see being able to select music genres I want to be notified about. Neat stuff.

1 Like
3

I absolutely love it. Iā€™m just half way through your playlist and I havenā€™t actually skipped. I do hope, your curated content, doesnā€™t loose this feel in the nearestā€¦

1 Like
4

Thanks guys.

@efemoney as for the website, I originally went for Brutalist. But after some feedback I had to do a middle ground approach which is why it looks like that.

As for the automation part, I would say that is not coming anytime soon until Iā€™m fully confident that there is a system that chooses afromusic just as good as an afromusic aficionado.
The problem is that the music is scattered/distributed amongst various sites so itā€™s kinda hard to curate since itā€™s just for the whole sub-Saharan not one country. I go through about 180 songs a week and select about 5-7 with the help of some of my mates.

So at best, Iā€™m aiming for semi automation. But if automation is available, iā€™ll do it.

@gabe thanks. Appreciate it.
I donā€™t think it will change, you can check the past month playlists too, to gauage the consistency, which I think is pretty consistent in quality.
You can sign up to get it when the new ones come out.

:blush:

4 Likes
5

Love this!!! Signed up already.

Totally enjoying the May playlist.

Personally, I love the fact that you are curating this yourself with the help of your friends. I definitely prefer ā€œafromusic aficionadosā€ making the selection.

A great business could be built off this. I am sure you will come up with something with time. There is definitely something here.

1 Like
6

A* playlist! Had to pause it to sign up immediately! Instant dopamine for the soul.

Honestly, I canā€™t say this enoughā€¦curation is king! Not content because itā€™s now mass produced. So when you save me from listening to garbage (in this case), then you have my attention.

One thing @ADT I feel you shouldnā€™t hold back on sharing more of the back story for arriving at 3 percent. I like what youā€™ve shared already, just feel it could be moreā€¦

BTW, are we getting a special playlist for all over events going forward?

1 Like
7

I like it!
Though I donā€™t like all the songs in your playlist but I still like it, most of them really sounded cool. :thumbsup:

1 Like
8

From my point of view, good music is relative.
Itā€™s all about perspective. Hence why i think the main problem that you need to tackle is around making sure that you have a diverse array of curators.
There are also chances that you would have some copyright concern interns of the distribution of the ā€œsongsā€

I think the best winners from music service are those that do not physically host any files.

This is really a good idea, and thank God you have mreazi on that playlist, i would have totally freaked out and probably discredited your curator capabilities.
Good one. Nice job

5 Likes
9

Thank you all for the feedback so far.

@Suleman glad you like it. I may think about the business aspect later. Weā€™ll see. But thanks for signing up!

@ribads very good point about the relative part. Donā€™t think everyone will like ALL the songs but as a whole, a large subset of the curated songs would be dope to each person that listens- Thatā€™s the aim.

Personalisation will probably be the next major step but taste is hard to measure.

2 Likes
10

@PapaOlabode Thanks man. Haha. Glad you like it.
The back story is not that interesting. Itā€™s on the website under find out more:

But hereā€™s a modified excerpt

About 180 songs are released online weekly.
The problem is, about 90% of the songs released weekly either sound the sameā€¦ or aĢ¶rĢ¶eĢ¶ Ģ¶wĢ¶aĢ¶cĢ¶kĢ¶ are not good enough.

Of the 10% that sound different, maybe about 7% are pleasant.
But just under 3 percent of Afromusic released weekly sound dope (p.s. how the name came about).
The issue: Is it really worth going through all those songs just to find the best ones?

Less Than 3 Percent does the hard work for you and looks for the very best songs every week so you donā€™t have to.

Basically.

Ah. I donā€™t know about special playlist o. Iā€™ll think about it.

2 Likes
11

I like the fact that youā€™re doing this to change the conversation and not for money. Thatā€™s why I signed up. Having said that Iā€™m wondering why I should trust your curation? If you want to commercially exploit this idea, you should get a group of music influencers (deejays, artists, oapā€™s, musicologists etc )to curate your playlist. The. You have a service you can potentially charge people for.

1 Like
12

dope playlist i must sayā€¦good job!

1 Like
13

If you must enter Music, enter it Smartly, you have a great idea Curating Best music and upcoming music for Individuals needing same, like others have pointed get curators to provide list and hence it will be tagged DJ Cuppys Playlist for May, sign up for 50 naira( when you begin to monetize) the curation strategy is your USP but can be easily copied BUT its your curation process, the underlying USP that sells you, im signing up.

1 Like
14

Hi @Simi_Ajayi in terms of ā€œWhy I should trust your curation?ā€, my simple answer would be to look at the previous selections. I.e. The songs in the playlists. If you like most of the songs selected (or all), then I believe you can peg some level of trust to it relative to your taste in music.

As for the monetisation part which @Freshboi_Ekundayo also mentioned, Iā€™ll have to look at this sometime way down the line (if ever). At heart I am a product guy, so if I can get the product up to the point in which it is incredibly awesome then I can start thinking about other things. So my primary focus for now is the product. Also, my preferred business model for a venture is to start making money from day 1, which this doesnā€™t offer so I didnā€™t even bother.

However, thanks for the ideas, they may be useful in the future.

Thanks for signing up too! :muscle:

Also, shout out Radar for putting this in the Tech cabal daily digest, wasnā€™t expecting that. :raised_hands:

1 Like
15

@ribads just seen your comment about Mr Eazi. Haha. If you would like to be part of the process/review, you can drop me a message.

1 Like
16

I love this and I have found great music through your playlist.

I donā€™t usually listen to Nigerian music because I donā€™t have the time to go through sites (and they are so much now) checking out each music unlike foreign music where I can probably check Billboard charts or some other site and get selected music.

What you have done is cool.

By the way there is another site with the similar name and in to the same space lessthan3.com.I found out when I forgot your siteā€™s name and had to search. Maybe you should stick to just 3pcent which is already your domain (without the less).

1 Like
17

So, with the positive feedback, I just signed up. Iā€™m going to listen all day and hope I can ditch my deezer account for good. :wink:

18

Lol. Letā€™s not get dramatic.

1 Like
19

Thanks @Idarlington. Iā€™m glad you now have a new source of good music. Your comment is actually one of the problems Iā€™m trying to tackle. Good Curation.

As for the url/domain, I am contemplating on what to do next. In hindsight, I shouldnā€™t have been too focused on getting a ā€˜.comā€™ where other TLDā€™s may have sufficed. But thanks for bringing this to my attention.

@Possicon Haha. Itā€™s a reach but not impossible. For now, iā€™ll just gauge what the next course of action would be. Thanks though.

1 Like
20

Also for those just finding out about this, we made a list of 2016: ā€˜25 songs you should have heard by nowā€™ so you donā€™t feel like you have missed out. Shared this via email but thought Iā€™ll share it here as well.

Have a lovely day.