Sub Saharan Africa is rising, we can all see it, we can all feel it. The music industry is growing as well, at least every two week’s there’s a concert from an upcoming musician, and corporate are signing up established local musicians to perform at branded events.

Recently, I wanted to purchase some local music but the established music shops didn’t have some of the albums I wanted. I decided to check iTunes on my computer. We’re all familiar with apple’s iTunes; the software that is needed to sync iPhones, iPads and iPods. In it there’s a delightful feature called the “iTunes music store”. However, if you’re in Kenya, you’ll find only applications for iPhone, iPad and iPod. There’s absolutely no music for purchase in the Kenya region. I would have to change my location to another country (most likely developed), put some unfortunate soul’s residential address and then submit my credit card details.

This is very frustrating on my part. I just want to purchase local music online, why do I need to alter so many things?

Compact Discs (CDs) are being phased out. A local musician mentioned this to me. They’re cumbersome to carry in bulk, they can break in transit when mishandled and that the only reason why people buy them is for ripping the songs to MP3 format and transferring it to their various devices. Recently, Afro-pop group Just-a-band pioneered a new way of distributing their latest album Sorry for the delay: dropcards. Basically these are credit card sized cards with a special number on them. After purchasing them, you visit their website where there’s a dialogue box that requests that card number, and when submitted, gives you a download link for the album. I thought that was genius. I had my album in a few minutes and I was very pleased at the convenience and ease of use.

There is a similar concept called Mdundo. It essentially is a local music store that acts as an avenue of finding local digital music online. Here, individuals can download local music to their phone using a scratch card. They’ll launch mobile payments soon. However, if apple iTunes made available a local music store for Kenya or east Africa, one would simply log on and purchase music directly from there.

With the rise of online banking services being used in Kenya (paypal, or simple credit/debit cards that work online) coupled with the rise in availability of quick paced internet, I’m quite sure many individuals would follow that option. It’s secure, and the download is permanent. If you lost your music in some random computing activity, one just needs to visit the iTunes store and download the purchase again free of charge. Most iTunes albums costs between $8 and $12, which is at the Ksh1000 threshold. I would happily pay such an amount for a local album. Many would. We have modems, fiber optics and WIMAX, so internet connectivity isn’t much of an issue, you’ll have the download in a few minutes, and at most, an hour.

I feel that with iTunes present in Kenya and East Africa, music piracy would be curbed and it would solve a major headache for musicians when it comes to distribution. It would see these local musicians get a wider scope of audience, and more importantly, gain higher revenues from digital sales. With Nation Hela cards, Safaricom pre-paid visa cards and the like; it’s not difficult to make online payments.

The real challenge is getting local music online.