What mobile phones are doing to West African music

In Mali, as in most other West African countries, the popular music industry is undergoing major changes with the transition to high-speed Internet using 3G technology. A new music ecosystem is emerging, in which mobile phones are not only the main medium to access music, but also contribute to the transformation of creative processes, of listening, sharing and storage practices, and of tastes, social skills and imaginaries surrounding music. This article follows the company ZikMali’s project in the field of digital music distribution, step by step. The ethnography opens a discussion on the commonly accepted idea of the mobile phone as a “digital provider”, showing all the pitfalls, constraints and challenges that have to be overcome today in Mali, simply to build digital “access” to music. Finally, the article situates this case study in relation to work on the digitization of cultural industries in countries of the North. It shows that while the contexts in which a commercial online music offer is built are quite similar, the underlying representations, approaches and values are far more localized.