South Sudan artists have blamed the low level of infrastructural and technological development for their invisibility in the cyber-sphere.
In an industry where musicians and celebrities around the region rely hugely on the internet economy to finance their music business, the case is different in South Sudan where internet penetration is at four percent, according to the Global Internet Index.
Speaking to The City Review last week, W.J De King, a popular musician with over 9,000 fans on Facebook, said lack of reliable internet coupled with prolonged economic slowdown has hampered the ability of many artists to promote their work digitally.
“The challenge that we face as musicians is that access to the internet is costly. Of course, some of us are trying but I must say it’s not easy, especially on the face of an economically harsh environment like ours,” he said.
The Ana bi Ruwa Wen hit-maker also laments that the inability of South Sudanese musicians to stay in the cyberspace limits their audience base to the domestic grid and makes them lose out to the regional and global competition.
South Sudanese musicians fund their projects from the money they get from concerts, a tradition that has been disrupted by the coronavirus as public gatherings have been prohibited to prevent the spread of the disease.
Unlike their counterparts in East Africa, they can hardly hold virtual concerts as most of their fans have no access to the internet.
W.J postponed a live event dubbed 15 Years of Music Concert that was initially slated for June 5. The event remains in abeyance until the health situation in the country gets better.
Mr. Lengs, another prominent local afrobeat chanter told The City Review through his manager that the online absence of musicians in the country cannot be blamed on the artists because they have staff who manage their social media accounts.
“It is not the work of an artist to always be seen interacting with fans on social media because they are busy planning what songs to release and when to release. If anyone blames the artistes for their digital absence I find it unwise,” said the manager.
Prominent musicians such as Diamond Platnumz, Rayvanny, Harmonize, Willy Paul, and other regional artists are funded by YouTube for the ownership of vibrant channels that attract millions of views per month in what has come to be known as the internet economy.
A South Sudanese YouTube channel with the highest number of subscribers is Sudania Online YouTube with 29.3k subscribers and a combined 3.4 million views since 2017.
It is not only internet-related challenges that kill the local music industry. Copyright issues have has also become a major concern as artistic intellectual property is used without their prior consent.
Even during the coronavirus awareness campaigns, their songs are played without their consent.
Revolutionary musician Emmanuel Kembe lamented the lack of protection of copyrights, saying the use of their compositions by third parties without a written consent has further denied local artistes incomes.
In 2019, the government passed the Copyright Bill to protect content creators against piracy.