SA CD Sales Are At An All Time Low. Is SA Hip Hop Music In Trouble?
Since the emergence of the internet in our country we have watched the South African music CD sales dropping rapidly because the fans can just get the music online. CD sales are at an all-time low and digital music is on the rise, especially, with the increase of online downloading platforms.
Late last year we received the news that the certification process had been taken down because artists are not selling as well as they used to. Basically they reduced the amount of CD sales an artist has to sell to reach gold or platinum status.
“We looked at the continuous decline of CD sales and we’ve noticed that in the past three years, the decline is averaging 30 percent. Now that is a substantial decline. That is making it almost impossible for many artists to reach gold and platinum,” said Nhlanhla Sibisi, Recording Industry of SA.
In the past artists needed to sell 25 000 copies to be certified Gold and 50 000 copies to be certified platinum. RISA pulled Gold status down to 15 000 copies and platinum status is now 30 000 copies.
You would assume this means music consumption has decreased, but the truth is music consumption has actually increased because of the amount of music being shared and downloaded from different platforms.
