Exclusive: Africa’s RapGenius DecodedLyrics.com to Relaunch Website With Over 1000 Songs

DecodedLyrics.com, Africa’s RapGenius, a music platform publishing lyrics of African artists is launching its new site in by the end of this month with more content, social integration and yes, great style and a nice user interface.

Speaking to TechMoran, co-founder Chika Uwazie said, ” When we (her and Juluis Sea) launched the platform last February we were really just testing the waters. The first version of Decoded was bare bones with no real design in mind. We saw that people really enjoyed the Decoded website and decided to do a design overhaul in order to reflect our new vision.”

Chika said the new site will be the music discovery platform they have always wanted it to reflect. It is also much more easier to navigate and they have added more social functions in order for fans to better connect with their favorite artists. They have also  included a way for people to annotate the lyrics.

With over 1000 songs on the platform before its new launch and 500 artists, Chika says the, ” new website has all of the functions of the old website but now it is on steroids. It is loaded with more content including a suggestion tool to discover new artists.”

With a team adding up music on the site, Chika says they hope to grow that amount exponentially as they  fix minor tweaks to the website ready for the launch by the end of the month.

Though there are several music sites launching every other day, Chika says they are not just another lyrics site as they have other content on the website like videos and original music reviews. She adds that DecodedLyrics differs from the competition with their amazing design that is infused with the African spirit.  The portal also has artists profile pages that links to their songs, albums, videos, and websites that offer their music for sale.

“Also we are the first African website that allows users to annotate the lyrical meaning behind the song. We truly have made a comprehensive music website that will be fun for users to explore,” she adds. Currently bootstrapping DecodedLyrics plan to make revenue through advertisement and key sponsorship spaces throughout the website.

Though with different business models, players in Africa’s digital music scene are doubling by the days growing steadily with players like iROKING headed by serial entrepreneur Jason Njoku, Truspot which is relaunching early this year, popular Spinlet, Kenya’s Mdundo which is expanding into East Africa and helping artists earn money via vouchers, GidiLounge, Iwantairplay and the recently launched Grumi among others.