Sbusiso Jaca developed the Tuneroyalty platform where musicians can upload their work, control their rights and get their fans to invest in their careers. (Photo: Siphesihle Nene ‘95)
There’s something deeply spiritual about the way sound travels through the South African landscape. You hear it in the hum of taxi radios, the spontaneous harmonies at train stations, the Sunday gospel flooding township streets.
Ours is a country where music isn’t background noise, it’s testimony. It tells of struggle, joy, survival and, above all, resilience.
But somewhere between the studio and the spotlight, too many South African artists get lost. Their dreams are muted by exploitative contracts, drowned by lack of access and discarded by a system that often doesn’t care who makes the music, only who profits from it.
That’s the world Sbusiso Jaca saw — and it shook him.
“I started off as a music producer,” he recalls. “Working with upcoming artists around KwaZulu-Natal — mostly independent ones.
“What I saw was painful.”
Painful, not because of a lack of talent — there’s no shortage of that. The pain came from watching brilliant young creatives with no money for music videos, no marketing budget, sometimes not even the R300 needed to distribute their music online.
In a country with soaring unemployment, this was more than a career issue. It was an economic crisis. “Even when artists do get signed,” Jaca explains, “they walk away with just 10% or 15% of what their music earns.”
That is not a deal. That is dispossession.
From this frustration, Jaca did what many South Africans do best: he innovated. He built Tuneroyalty, a homegrown tech platform that allows independent artists to upload their songs, maintain control of their rights and invite their fans to invest in their careers.
“We needed something built for us, by us,” he says. “Americans and Europeans have platforms tailored to their music industries. We didn’t. So we built one.”
On Tuneroyalty, artists can choose how much of their music rights — be it publishing, master or composer rights — they want to offer. Fans can buy into these rights, sometimes for as little as R100, and become stakeholders in the song’s success.
“Imagine if we had invested in [by Mandoza’s] Nkalakatha when it first came out,” Jaca says. “That song is generational. What we’re building is a way for fans to be part of the legacy — from the beginning.”
This isn’t just about streaming. It’s about structural power. It’s about rewriting the rules of who gets to win.
One of the groundbreaking aspects of Tuneroyalty is its use of artificial intelligence (AI), not to replace artists, but to protect them.
“The biggest issue is a lack of knowledge,” Jaca says. “Many artists don’t even know how to register their music properly. That’s where labels take advantage.”
Tuneroyalty’s AI chatbot, trained on South African legal knowledge and music industry best practices, walks artists through the process of song registration, contract review and royalty structures. It even scans contracts for potential loopholes, an affordable legal safety net for those who can’t afford traditional lawyers.
And the AI isn’t just smart, it’s local. It understands the slang, the genres, the legal frameworks here, not in LA or London.
“This is technology that speaks amapiano,” Jaca laughs. “Not corporate-ese.”
The emergence of platforms like Tuneroyalty hasn’t gone unnoticed by traditional institutions like the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro). As the regulatory body responsible for administering performance royalties in South Africa, it has long been the gatekeeper of the music economy.
In a formal response to questions about AI-powered platforms like Tuneroyalty, the organisation acknowledged the shift.
“Samro is dedicated to safeguarding the rights of music creators and copyright owners,” it says. “We’re actively adapting to technological trends, including AI, while ensuring our members benefit first.”
Samro emphasises that its systems already integrate audio fingerprinting and global metadata tracking. They’re not standing still but they’re cautious about decentralised models.
“Fan investment complicates royalty splits,” Samro notes. “If not documented properly, it can cause delays or disputes.”
More importantly, Samro highlights that bypassing collective management organisations can result in missed income from live venues, international reciprocal agreements and broadcasting rights.
Still, there’s recognition that change is inevitable.
“Technology and AI-driven tools are not avoidable,” Samro concedes. “But they must be regulated to preserve human authorship and ensure fair remuneration.”
Where Jaca sees a movement, Samro sees a maze of legal complications. “Until independent platforms demonstrate compatibility with verified metadata standards,” the organisation explains, “collaboration remains difficult.”
There are regulatory challenges to South Africa’s copyright legislation, last updated in 1978, which doesn’t account for AI, decentralisation or even the complexities of fan-based ownership models.
But reform is underway. Samro is lobbying for clearer legislation on AI authorship, digital royalties, and platform accountability.
“We’re working with lawmakers,” its statement says. “This has to be done right.”
While Tuneroyalty is rooted in South Africa, its vision stretches across the continent. Many African artists, from Lagos to Nairobi, face similar challenges — limited infrastructure, poor access to capital and exploitative label deals.
“We’re starting here because we know this struggle,” Jaca says. “But the goal is Africa.”
His dream is to scale the model across the continent, using South African lingo, legal precedent and lived experience as the foundation.
“It doesn’t talk like an overseas AI,” he smiles. “It speaks our language.”
For Jaca, justice isn’t abstract. It’s hyper-specific: “Justice looks like a kid from a township, using a slow old Pentium 4 computer and pirated software, who makes a hit. He doesn’t sign a bad deal. He uploads it to our platform. Sells 10% to fans. Gets legal advice from AI. And owns everything.”
That’s the dream. Not to fight the industry with protests but with platforms. Not to destroy legacy structures but to render them optional.
“One day,” Jaca says, “that same artist might buy the label.”
Samro isn’t ignoring the wind of change. The organisation has modernised its licensing with digital platforms such as TikTok, Spotify and Netflix. It has also implemented AI tools to streamline its royalty distribution, all while participating in global networks like the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers to influence international policy.
But it also maintains its role as protector of legacy revenue — radio, TV, public performances — income sources that independent platforms often overlook.
“Our priority is transparency, efficiency, and creator-first advocacy.”
Still, as more artists gain digital tools to manage their rights, Samro must adapt, not just technically, but philosophically. The future is not either/or — it’s both/and.
When we talk about music, we often speak of hits, charts and fame. But behind every great South African song is a story of sacrifice and of long walks to dusty studios of late nights and borrowed beats.
“I remember Nasty C talking about how he used to walk long distances just to record,” Jaca says. “That’s the reality. Labels don’t understand that kind of pain.”
Tuneroyalty is a bridge to dignity, to ownership, to legacy. It says: “If you’ve carried the beat this far, you deserve the rewards that come after.”
And Samro, for all its formality, seems to be listening.
So, here we are, standing at the threshold of a new soundscape. One where artists don’t need permission to release, don’t need to be discovered to succeed and don’t need to sell their souls to survive.
As Jaca puts it: “If we can’t own land, let us own our music.”
And maybe that’s enough. Maybe music is land. Maybe it’s inheritance. Maybe it’s our last claim to something truly ours.
Either way, the message is clear— the beat will go on but this time, it’s on our terms.