Music startup, Josplay, aims to transform how businesses use African tunes for growth

Josplay, a music intelligence company with a focus on the African content, has announced the release of its flagship product, Josplay Enterprise.

The product is built with the goal of preserving African musical heritage by using it to provide business solutions. Josplay equips businesses with culture-rich, mood-targeted music to amplify positive emotions, boost customer engagement, staff productivity, and in turn, increase growth and profitability.

The service is available on the web (https://josplay.com) and as both mobile (Android) and desktop applications (Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu).

According to its co-founder, Emmanuel Ogala, the company uses artificial intelligence techniques and human musicology experts to curate enterprise-grade playlists sensitive to the nuanced challenges organisations face when playing music within their premises.

While many organisations agree that playing music within their premises can boost customer satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability, most are unable to either find the right music for their audience or navigate the complexities of acquiring licenses for the music.

“These are some of the core problems Josplay Enterprise solves,” Mr. Ogala said.

Josplay takes away the complexities of obtaining music licensing for businesses away from its users. The service takes care of license negotiations for users while giving them access to hundreds of playlists curated for their local audiences.

“Josplay understands musical tastes of African audiences at a local level. We also understand how these tastes differ as you cross geographical and cultural boundaries. It is with this understanding that Josplay helps businesses entertain their audiences and boost their profit,” Mr Ogala said.

Josplay says it believes all musical creative works should be distributed to ensure maximum profitability for copyright holders. Therefore, the company is partnering with Performance Rights Organizations and local record labels across Africa to ensure that the royalty for every creative work used by its customers gets back to the right owners.

“It is important for us that artists are paid whenever their works are used,” Mr. Ogala said. “When businesses use Josplay, they do not just profit from the benefits of happier customers, they are also giving back to their local creative industry.”

Josplay is founded by a team of software engineers and musicologists and is engineered to match every African music with an audience that appreciates it.

According to Mr. Ogala, Josplay is privately funded but preparing Series A funding to enable this solution to reach its global market.

“We believe that music should not be devalued by age,” Mr. Ogala added.