Quick question: Why does Spotify have African Music if Africans can’t enjoy the service?

Since October last year I have faithfully been an Apple Music user. I enjoyed my 3 months, got hooked and never looked behind. A month costs $4.99 and with that you get access to almost everything in the world of music.

I have promised constantly to write a post solely about Apple Music. But I just haven’t figured a way of making people see it from my view. I fear that talking about Apple Music would basically mean saying:

There are millions of songs
You get to enjoy every new song when released
You can save albums and playlists offline
Plus there’s Apple Music Original shows/series coming soon.

See, that’s close to all about Apple Music (in a very badly simplified manner). And being an Android user, a review would also mean sharing about the app’s problems and how certain things still don’t work well or how it force closes sometimes.

Anyway, last week, I decided to finally try Spotify. I have read numerous posts on why it is the best music app. But since they snob us Africans (the service is not yet available here), I had told myself I will also forever snob them without ever trying their app.

To get the app to work in Kenya, you need to have VPN enabled and set to appear as if you’re in a Spotify available country. Signing up, you also get 7 days free to test out Spotify Premium no credit card required.

Spotify has a totally different UI when compared to Apple Music. And the app focuses on Playlists rather than albums or an individual artistes’ music. It focuses on feelings, genres, activities and moods.

So there’s a playlist on Spotify for basically anything:

Reading
Running
Working
Relaxing etc

There’s also a Spotify playlist for:

Feeling Good
Feeling Sad
Break-ups
Waking up
Boosting Confidence
When at work
Night music and much more

The best thing isn’t that these playlists exist. Nope. The best thing is that these playlists are really, really, really good, accurate and nicely curated. Whoever (or whatever bot) is behind the curation and listing is a true music listener who knows what they are doing.

Apple Music, according to me, has a focus on artistes and albums. As such, the app cannot widen your mind on the songs that exist. The app puts it so much upon you to create a list for a feeling or an activity. I felt like using Apple Music really narrows you down to only the artistes you know. Apple Music Official Playlists are also a bore somehow with their mostly only 10 songs maximum lists.

Spotify’s approach to music is really beautiful. I have loved using it every single day. The music sound quality is amazing. Being allowed to save whole playlists and albums offline is also quite something.

Focusing on playlists, moods and feelings doesn’t mean Spotify doesn’t show albums or artistes’ profiles. It does. You can go to your artiste’s profile and listen to their albums or singles, play their radios (this plays the artiste’s music plus music from similar artistes), and even save their stuff offline. The only problem I have faced is when trying to save a single song from an album.

My favourite Spotify playlists are:

Tropical House by Filtr Sweden – listening to it right now
Chill Hits by Spotify – was playing in screenshots above
Bongo Flava Fresh by rgithathu – I’ve played this most
Wake up Happy by Spotify
Good Vibes by Spotify
Hits Rewind by Spotify
Relax and Unwind by Spotify
Confidence Boost by Spotify
among many more

Other good things:

Crossfade songs – this is so good.
Gapless playback
“This Is” playlists that focus on individual artistes and their work. Like “This is: Ed Sheeran”.
Podcasts
Charts – what’s trending where
Original Video Series

Rant:

Okay Spotify, you are a really good music platform. And we want your service in Kenya. I’ve often asked myself: Are we lesser humans? We can pay for your service. I would gladly add my card and pay monthly. But as long as you don’t make your service officially available…