Mardplay, The New Music Streaming & sharing service in Africa

MardPlay is a new music streaming and sharing service powered by Cameroonians for Africans. It is the new kid on the block, a brainchild of Chillen Media Inc.

With the rise of the internet and smartphones, music streaming services have taken over the market. Today, we realize how big the music industry is and how valuable it is to artists.

Unfortunately, many Cameroon musicians find it difficult to make a living from music. The fact of this matter is that there is yet to be an abundance of platforms dedicated to helping Cameroon content creators make money from their creations.

Regardless of the need that exists, there is also the elephant in the room that calls for concern. This leads me to my first question; Is Cameroon ready for streaming?

Is Cameroon ready for Mardplay?

In my personal opinion, I’ll say NO and YES

Why I say “NO”

The way we consume music has changed a lot in the last few years, as more  Cameroonians transition to MP3 downloads instead of buying hard copies. While music streaming is a dinner table talk in some parts of the world, Cameroon is still sluggishly catching up to the passe.

Data is still very expensive around here and most music lovers can’t even afford it. We are still accustomed to the “Buy and download” system and even so, how many Cameroonians are actually willing to support the current wave of music and content creators in Cameroon by purchasing their art? The internet is still a luxury than a necessity for most of us.

Why I say “YES”

We are tired of being last in almost everything concerning the world wide web. I’m sickened by the constant complaints from musicians and content creators about how the entertainment industry of Cameroon is doomed due to a lack of the means to monetize their craft.

Change must start from somewhere and I admire every gut in Mr Nkwain Chaimbah, the CEO of Chillen Media Inc. He is definitely taking a big financial risk to pioneer music streaming in Cameroon.

I commend his efforts with the other Digital entrepreneurs in Cameroon trying their best to innovate our lives with technology!

Kudos to the Chillen media team actually trying to Make a real difference around here!

My Call to action!

A child has been born and we all must welcome this bouncing baby and contribute to making this child grow so we can experience the joy of sending someone to fetch you firewood and water lol!

It is upon us to take advantage of every opportunity that is here to foster our interest and give feedback to these our home-bred innovators so that they can better master how to solve our problem.

The white man isn’t coming anytime soon to help us and in the spirit of a proud Cameroonian, here is my review for Mardplay

What is Mardplay?

As stated on their website:

“MardPlay is a social audio streaming and sharing platform with the prime objective to help African audio content creators make “A LOT OF MONEY” from their content. On MardPlay you can stream, buy, share or download audio content from a vast variety of audio content creators in Africa”

 It comes with free and premium features which include sharing songs with friends, earning rewards based on your activities, a well-implemented payment system and a dashboard for content creators to view performance and financial stats on their content or cash out their earnings.

What’s possible with the Mardplay

As with most services, you can register for Mardplay Web App by connecting your Facebook account for optimal social features, or creating an account with your email address. It is required to create an email address before you Sign Up if you don’t already have an email address.

A pro account comes packed with a lot of nice features but below are the most striking ones that would leave you excited.

Mardplay Feature Highlight

BEAUTIFUL UI

Mardplay comes with two themes, the Light Mode and the Dark mode. Some refer to this as Daylight and night Modes.

SOCIAL

Mardplay is a social music sharing and streaming platform for a reason. It has an Activity Feed where users can get updated on each other’s activities.

Its Live Chat put a little muscle on everything happening. Users can listen to the music they love while chatting about last night’s Football game, so convenient!
The Follow button takes it up a notch; Follow your favourite celebs,

LIVE NOTIFICATION

Get social, see who recently liked your new song and Who recently commented.
Get notified about the happenings of those whom you follow in real-time.

SEARCH

Do you Want to listen to a song but don’t know the artist? Wanna buy Stanley Eno’s new album but don’t know the tittle? The search bar is your associate and everything is super fast (real-time search)

STORE

A PRO Account offers a Music store alongside other market-friendly features. Musicians can sell their Albums, singles, Podcast and other audio-related digital products

YOUR LIBRARY

Your Library (Your Music) is where you’ll find what you have currently like and interact with, across devices. It’s built to store your favourite songs, playlists, artists, albums, and podcasts.

DISCOVER

The Discover section is filled with custom recommendations based on your music preference. This feature gets better as you use the platform.

If you are stuck picking out something new to listen to, you can get lost scrolling down this page because of the vast curated music library that’s readily available.

LANGUAGE

Mardplay comes with two languages right out of the box French and English. You can switch between french and English conveniently without compromising your current listening state.

DOWNLOADS

If you have a Pro account, you can download your favourite songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts, so you can listen to them without an internet connection (this is only available via the app).

An internet connection is initially required for downloading. You must go online at least once every 30 days and maintain a Pro subscription to keep your music and podcasts downloaded.

LYRICS

It makes perfect sense for the lyrics of your favourite song to be readily available during your music listening sessions. This feature helps you to See key lyrics of many of your favourite tracks as they’re sung.

ARTIST PROFILE

Artist profiles are where you’ll find all releases available by a particular artist, plus everything you need to know about them.
Explore an artist profile to find:

• All available albums, singles, and EPs. Check out their Latest Release and Popular ones to get to know their music.
• Compilations, or releases by other artists, that they appear on.
• Fans Also Like: Other artists their fans listen to, determined by listener habits and trends around the internet.
• About: Their biography,
• Concerts: When and where they’re playing, and how to find tickets.
• Artist Playlists and Artist’s Pick: The music they’re into!
• Monthly listeners: Their average number of listeners per month.

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FREE or PREMIUM

With a growing catalogue of about 20000 Cameroon songs and more as of the time I am writing this article, the possibility to consume free or premium music is at your fingertips.

A free account is a bit limited but gives you the ability to stream all Free content while the Pro Account is said to have all the above-highlighted features with an All Acces pass.

Premium brings a swath of additional features, like 320Kbps streaming, and downloading music for offline listening.
Depending on how you plan to use Mardplay upgrading to a pro account would offer a pretty significant improvement in your experience.

My 5 Cent!

The online world is still very strange even for me and I’m still learning and trying to incorporate those things that would make life easy for me. But I have to be honest; music streaming isn’t for me yet cuz I can barely have a regular supply of steady internet! I dabble into this from time to time and can’t really call myself a music streamer. I’m trying this innovation and so should you or anyone in this milieu.

The music store section of Mardplay is what I think might be useful for most of us before we ever feel a streaming fever. It’s practical and we are accustomed too and I think it’s a smart move for Chillen media to incorporate this feature. It is a perfect fail-safe for this project and a guarantee that this project shall survive.

Survival is a strong word and I know it’s the micro contributions of every Cameroonian that shall determine Mardplays survival.

So what are you waiting for? I’ve got Odiopeople registered already!