You’d be hard pressed to find an amapiano hit that isn’t a viral success on TikTok. It’s almost become a rite of passage these days for the genre’s biggest songs to first trend on TikTok before growing into mainstream hits.
Business Insider recently revealed that 67% of the app's users are more likely to seek out songs on music-streaming services after hearing them on TikTok.
TikTok's music-centred virality has been a global phenomenon for over three years now, but it only really started becoming evident in South Africa around 2020 during the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
Yuvir Pillay, who is TikTok’s music operations lead for sub-Saharan Africa, explains how this all unfolded: “In 2020, at the beginning of the year, amapiano was a genre that was starting to rise, but it wasn’t what it is today.
“If you look at amapiano artists like DJ Maphorisa and Kabza De Small, or even hip hop artists like Cassper who pivoted to amapiano, they all started posting at the same time on TikTok in early 2020.
“We started to notice that our users were starting to use more amapiano music and less focus on hip hop, so we made sure that we amplified it.”
To amplify this growth, Pillay and his team promoted amapiano artists that were starting to gain traction on the platform and helped boost their music by spotlighting challenges and content around the genre.
A scroll through the YouTube comments on several viral amapiano hits of the past few years reveals a deluge of comments from users saying they discovered the song on TikTok.
Nowadays, even record labels trawl the TikTok streets looking for the next big song and the superstars of tomorrow.
“TikTok influences the trends," adds Pillay. "It influences the songs that you hear on radio, the songs that you see on the music charts and on streaming platforms. The majority of them are actually coming from songs that trended on TikTok nowadays.
“Not only in South Africa but across the continent and across the world. There’s so much influence with the music that trends on TikTok and how that actually works to get your song on other platforms.”
He also explains that the platform works with artists, record labels and distributors to try and make sure that they have the support on the platform that they need to ensure discovery and make their voices heard.
Where streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music offer various ways for listeners to discover new music, TikTok’s success in this regard comes from the fact that its crowd-sourced discovery is more pure and fun.
There are dance challenges, lip synching videos and other forms of video content that are engaging and encourage users to participate, one way or another.
Songs that have been out for decades can also organically rise up in popularity and go viral out of nowhere.
“There was a song from Mandoza that started trending this year out of nowhere,” Pillay says. “At the record label no one was promoting this thing. Our users decided to use the song as part of a comedy skit and next thing it’s trending and it’s picking up on the charts out of nowhere.
“So things like that happen all the time and that’s from catalogue artists. When it comes to new artists, we’ve had so many new artists that nobody’s heard from before but next thing their song is trending on TikTok and they’re getting bookings, radio play and they’re getting streaming placements on playlists.
“That’s the kind of stories we like to be part of and like to tell because we are part of artists' success as well."
Pillay adds that the platform does not put priority on established artists but instead rewards effort on unique content by providing promo banners and TikTok playlists. "With TikTok, as long as you’re doing something cool with your song, you will get discovered, that’s how it goes."
But the app’s one minute limit on music isn’t ideal for music consumption, leading many users to have to go out of the app and find their favourite songs on YouTube or other streaming platforms.
To combat this and keep everything in one place, there’s been rumours over the past year that TikTok is looking to launch its own in-app music streaming platform to compete with global giants Spotify and Apple Music.
Just this week, Music Business Worldwide reported that a US trademark application was filed by TikTok parent company ByteDance for "TikTok Music" and that the proposed application, which was originally filed in Australia in November, would allow users to “purchase, play, share, download music, songs, albums, lyrics.”
I ask Pillay if there's any credibility to these reports. “We are a short video platform and we also have live videos that are a part of it," he says.
"We are not a streaming platform, let me make that very clear. TikTok is an entertainment platform, that’s what we are.”
To solidify its position within the local music industry, TikTok recently partnered with the South African Music Awards (SAMAs) to introduce the inaugural public-voted "TikTok Viral Song of the Year" category.
This award recognises and celebrates local songs and artists that have dominated the entertainment platform in South Africa in the past year.
Pillay explains the partnership: “Music is a part of our DNA at TikTok. It’s part of every video, every challenge. We’ve been such a big player now in the music industry that we really wanted to cement our place. So looking at institutions in South Africa, the SAMAs is the biggest.
“They’ve been around for the longest time, they’re one of the biggest music awards in Africa. It just made sense for us to partner with them to make sure that we are doing something that is significant in the South African music industry.”
With the platform essentially becoming guerrilla radio for Gen Z’s, we can expect to see them getting more and more involved in the music business. Perhaps a streaming platform of their own isn't too far fetched after all.