Are you one those people who have no idea what Kenyan Artists are saying on their songs? Here comes Ghafla with KenyanLyrics. Ghafla.co.ke  is a Kenyan Startup website that provides its visitors with the full experience of learning the correct lyrics to their favourite local hits as well as give them an opportunity to watch or listen to the hit online through the large database of rich music content.
Personally being one of the people who have no idea on what some of the Kenyan musicians are singing about, i took time to check out some of the lyrics else i will be left behind. Most of the time what i hear from Kenyan musicians is ârusha mikono juuâ (Raise your hands up) or of late âGet Downâ. So I started with one of the latest hits by Jaguar.. âKigeugeuâ Â and I was impressed with search speed of the site and the results:
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1. Kigeugeu
(J/Jaguar lyrics)LISTEN TO ‘KIGEUGEU’ Artist: Jaguar Song: Kigeugeu Year: 2010 Language: Kiswahili Dunia nizamishe ama uniweke niishi pekee yangu, kwani ninapomwamini kila binadamu, mwishowe ananigeukia Dunia nizamishe …
Wednesday, 05 January 2011
2. Dunia Kigeugeu
(L/Les Wanyika lyrics)LISTEN TO ‘DUNIA KIGEUGEU’ Artist: Les Wanyika Song: Dunia Kigeugeu Language: Kiswahili naamini unaenda hutarudi oh hata kama sio leo wala kesho eeh mimi wako mama nawe wangu cherie mama mbona hivyo …
Tuesday, 06 July 2010
I got not only the Kigeugeu song by Jaguar but also Dunia Kigeugeu by Les Wanyika. Great. That confirmed to me some of the explanation i was given by one of the key people behind the KenyanLyrics Mr. Majani. âFinding the right lyric, based on key phrases or words from a song, requires a search engine that is tuned differently than traditional search engines. KenyanLyrics has built a lyric search engine on top of its world-class KenyanLyrics Service, delivering fast, relevant results for track lyric-focused searches through its optimized search engines in conjunction with Googleâ He said
Ghafla also provides an interactive platform for its users as they search for their favorite hitsâ lyrics. This includes not only lyrics but also artist biographies, artist contemporaries, album cover art, album notes as well as an interactive and engaging blog. Once you have the Lyrics you are looking for , you are able to comment and rate the artista and the song.
What is next for Ghafla?
Ghafla has optimized the PC delivery of the website and will soon be branching to the following major media platforms:
â˘Â   Mobile
â˘Â   Online Devices
â˘Â   Embedded Devices
According to Majani, the local artists lose out on the web based revenues, the international solutions like iTunes and Amazon do not help the local artists a such and Ghafla is taking it upon them to bring some joys to Kenyan Artists.
Show me the money!
The Ghafla team are working on two models: Free content  where you get the Lyrics only and paid content where you get the Lyrics, MP3s and the event tickets.
What is the Arrangement with the Artist
Ghafla team members know that song lyrics are copyright controlled content and can be used only with the express permission from artistes and music publishers. With that, they are reaching out to the recording companies to have arrangement with the artists on the revenue share. Their plan is to have a revenue share of 60: 40 where by the 60% goes to the Ghafla and 40% to the artists. Let me say mmmh, seriously I am not sure if the artists will agree to that, but I would like to hear from a few artists what they think about that.
By the way, Ghafla was second at IPO48 Nairobi 2011 and with that they walked away with 25,000 Euros from HumanIPO ( around Ksh.3.2 million, going with the current exchange rates)
[pullquote]HumanIPO is built on the thesis that successful companies will emerge through collaboration between networks of free agents.[/pullquote]