2go and iROKING partner to bring Nigerian music to millions

Nigerian music service iROKING is partnering with South African-born instant messenger and social network 2go to bring free Nigerian music downloads from the likes of Timaya, Flavour and Burna Boy to the more than 9 million active 2go users across Nigeria.

2go, a service who’s popularity rivals that of Facebook in Nigeria, becomes the second South African startup iROKING has partnered with in recent times. In late 2012, iROKING joined forces with traveller information company, GoMetro to bring its music catalogue to South African commuters.

The mobi site, built by iROKING, will deliver Afrobeats tunes to 2go users. In keeping with 2go’s low-cost approach, the site has been optimised to cater to feature phone users, with a light mobi site which means pages load faster, and with smaller music file sizes, costs for data charges can be kept to a minimum. In addition to instant search, sharing and free music downloads, 2go’s users will also have access to music industry news.

Adi Nduka-Agwu, Head of Business Development for iROKO Partners says: “The 2go platform has galvanised the biggest mobile messenger networking user base in Africa in an extremely short space of time, so it was only a matter of time before we were going to work with them. We are bringing Nigerian music to the millions with this partnership and we’re thrilled to be working with 2go to connect with new, young and music-obsessed audiences across continental Africa”.

“Millions of people use 2go to message friends and meet new people every day, so we’re very pleased to now partner with iROKING to bring the biggest Nigerian artists to 2go. Our users love music, so we’re excited to give them access to the latest Nigerian music and music news for free on their mobile phones,” 2go’s Peter Lockhart says.

iROKING is considered to be West Africa’s largest music distribution platform, with over 35 000 tracks from 400+ artists. Since launching in February 2012, iROKING has had 130 000 listener signups. The company also manages the YouTube channels of over 80 artists, which it claims delivers 15 million video views on average a month, with over 130 000 000 views across its pages.

2go has more than 9 million users in Nigeria and is one of Africa’s largest mobile social networks. The application runs on hundreds of mobile phone models — having made special provision for lower-tier handsets — and delivers its service with minimal data transfer, optimising cost. The service also allows users to talk to their Facebook and Google Chat friends.