Well well well. It seems that Swedish music streaming giant Spotify may finally make a play in South Africa. The company today sent out invites for a media event taking place in Johannesburg next week, and we're promised there will be "some news to share". Coy? Extremely. But this isn't the first time Spotify has teased us with news regarding its South African presence. In 2014, there was a suggestion that Vodacom was set to partner with the streaming music service. But again, this was more wishful thinking. In September 2017, the company posted a job placement for a South African music editor. "You...
After President Cyril Ramaphosa quoted Hugh Masekela during his SONA 2018 finale, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba likely thought he'd do something similar to rouse the nation. His pick? The admirable Kendrick Lamar. But while the multi-Grammy winner is held in high esteem across the world, it's Gigaba's delivery of "Alright" that Twitter didn't quite enjoy. "We gon' be alright," he quipped, quoting complete with hand whip and before announcing an increase to sin tax. The social network broke soon after. I'm done with this budget speech, did Gigaba just quote Kendrick? 🤣🤣🤣 #BudgetSpeech2018 #Budget2018 — Sakkie Ntloko (@sk_shred) February 21, 2018 That Kendrick quote was...
Music industry legend Quincy Jones has been making waves this week following the release of two interviews that showcase his extraordinary life. From partying with Frank Sinatra to frequent dinners with Elon Musk -- Jones has lived a life many wouldn't believe possible. So, without further ado, here are some of the most famous people Jones name dropped in his interviews with GQ and Vulture, just in case you wanted to reevaluate your relatively bland life. Frank Sinatra: close friends; drinking buddies; tried to set him up with Marilyn Monroe ("Marilyn Monroe had a chest that looked like pears, man"); when he...
Last night, Kendrick Lamar dropped the track list for the curated Black Panther soundtrack he produced and South Africans couldn't be more excited. Black Panther The Album 2/9 pic.twitter.com/MqhsEcj6iF — Kendrick Lamar (@kendricklamar) January 31, 2018 Local acts Babes Wodumo, Sjava, Yugen Blakrok, and Saudi are all featured on the 14-track album that includes major international acts like The Weeknd, Khalid, SZA, Future, and Lamar himself. Early last month, Lamar dropped the first single from the album, an upbeat collaboration by him and up-and-coming R&B artist SZA. But the South Africans eager to hear tracks like "X", "Opps", "Seasons", and "Redemption" -- all of which feature homegrown...
To say not everyone is happy about the winners at the 2018 Grammy Awards would be an understatement. In fact, based on commentary from both sides of the fence, I'd say that this edition was among the most divisive in recent years. Bruno Mars walked away with the big three honours: Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. But while the songs and album did sell like hotcakes in 2017, the awards handed out on the night deviated considerably from internet opinion and data provided by Google Search and Twitter. Song of the Year winner...
YouTube is readying its own music streaming service for debut in March 2018, according to a report by Bloomberg. The service, which is known within the firm as YouTube Remix, serves to hush music industry big-wigs who have been longing for a larger slice of revenue from the world's biggest video service. But Remix's existence isn't set in stone just yet. The Alphabet-owned company continues to slug it out with music companies Universal and Sony, and music video distributor Vevo for new content deals. There's also the question of how -- and if -- Remix will tie into Google's other streaming music service,...
Last night, media monster MTV hosted the latest edition of its annual European Music Awards (or EMAs) in London. Although likely forgotten by most, #MTVEMAs did trend through much of Europe late Sunday. In South Africa, we were a bit too concerned about the weekend's sporting failures. Taylor Swift was nominated for six awards, but as we all found, nominations don't always mean guaranteed wins (especially when it comes to a social media-based voting system). On that note, we've rounded up some of the winners on the night, and their reactions as told through their Twitter and Instagram posts. Best Song and Best...
Taylor Swift's latest era has been criticised as tone deaf and narcissistic as she takes on the "media" with her upcoming album Reputation -- but her fans are with her, and her latest video "...Ready For It?" has left many frantic to decipher hidden clues. Trying to solve all the pieces on Taylor Swift's music videos like.. pic.twitter.com/ES7fWQazTG — Dale 🐍 (@DaleSwifty) October 27, 2017 The Ghost in the Shell-esque video, which has amassed 2.4-million views in just over five hours, shows a witchy Swift confront a robotic clone of herself trapped in a glass cage. The video's budget must have largely been spent on CGI, as the...
American recording trio Major Lazer may have been slammed in the past for making coin from cultural appropriation, but its latest track brings out the best in South Africa's and Nigeria's music and cinematography scene. Co-produced by South Africa's DJ Maphorisa, and starring SA rapper Nasty C, and Nigerian artists Ice Prince, and Pantoranking, "Particula" is a reggae banger that this week received the music video treatment. Said video was also directed by Cape Town-based Adriaan Louw. "Particula" does not feature Table Mountain however, but rather the Hillbrow Tower. Major Lazer's 'Particula' is filmed in Johannesburg, but features both Nigerian and South...
Rapper Eminem unleashed a four-minute-long freestyle criticising US President Donald Trump at Tuesday's BET Hip Hop Awards, and the South African responses have been split. In the freestyle, the rapper says that, among other issues, "racism's the only thing fantastic for". He also bashes his "distraction" tactics of focussing on the recent NFL protests rather than disaster-relief for Hurricane-hit Puerto Rico. Eminem goes so far as to tell any of his Trump-supporting fans that he's "drawing a line in the sand; you're either for or against". The FULL verse that EVERYBODY is talking about! @eminem BODIED THIS! #HipHopAwardspic.twitter.com/zoS0wEwjQF — BET (@BET) October 11, 2017 Former-NFL...
For a brief moment on Wednesday, Apple's voice assistant Siri thought that the national anthem of Bulgaria was "Despacito". When asked "What is the national anthem of Bulgaria?" Siri responded with an info page for the Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee song, and the definitive answer: "The national anthem of Bulgaria is Despacito". The Verge's Tom Warren was among the first to notice the issue. Siri’s switch to Google went well then... pic.twitter.com/bbG5hI9hQA — Tom Warren (@tomwarren) October 4, 2017 While Siri wouldn't be far off judging by the song's viral popularity -- the video does boast over 3.9-billion views at the time of...
It's once again festival season in South Africa, and kicking off the year's musical escapades is a weekend double header. Both Rocking The Daisies in the Western Cape and OppiKoppi in Limpopo will take place this weekend in two opposite corners of the country -- but just because you're spending the weekend in dusty tents with limited power supply doesn't mean you can't use technology to make your partying just that bit easier. While there are a few apps you should have on your smartphone for both events (and the festivals to come), we'll take a look at specific apps you should...
Swedish export Spotify is one music streaming service that's infamously not available in South Africa, but that might be about to change. A job advertisement on Spotify's listings portal suggests that the company is seeking an employee vested in the South African music scene. Said employee will become the titular senior editor and music programmer who will "join Spotify Shows and Editorial team, responsible for South Africa". "You will identify and curate first rate music playlist listening- and programming experiences for a multitude of our moods, moments, and genres, demonstrate a passion for performance-oriented analytics, and will have your ear to...
At its first product launch event at the new Steve Jobs Theatre, Apple debuted a slew of new devices. One of them was the Apple Watch Series 3. But while you can catch all the technical specs of the Watch over on Gearburn, on Memeburn we're more concerned by one particular detail: Apple Music will be available on the device. Apple punted its music service's 40-million tracks, which will all be streamable from the wrist, thanks to the Watch's new electronic SIM system, that can connect to cellular networks. While the electronic SIM was only demoed using an AT&T network, this is...
The VMAs may have started at a local time of 2am Monday morning, but that didn't stop it from trending nationwide by the time most of the country was waking up. MTV offered what Vox called "an extremely boring show" at the same time as the much-anticipated Game of Thrones finale, yet still managed to crack a trend ahead of the HBO show. So just who were South Africans talking about? Kendrick Lamar Rapper Kendrick Lamar put on a political performance that started with news footage from an incident of police brutality interspersed with Fox News coverage. Lamar has always been vocal about race issues in the US -- last...
Why work won’t become obsolete in the age of artificial intelligence
Trailer: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s fun to fright ratio is just right
Truecaller hits the 100m daily active users mark, 20% reside in Africa
Netflix launches Instagram Stories-like previews on its iOS app
Vodacom’s 4G network exceeds 80% population coverage in South Africa
This ‘Kitten Kollege’ YouTube series is the cutest thing you’ll watch today
Memeburn focuses on everything digital in the emerging markets sphere. More about us here
