A leap of faith for Bangla music

The names Shaju Kazi and Saef Al Nazi may not be instantly recognisable to the country's youth, but to anyone who followed urban Bangla music in the 2000s and beyond, 'Shaju and Shezan from Artcell' will ring a familiar bell. The drummer and bassist of the progressive rock band that inspired a generation of musicians and listeners left to pursue higher studies to Australia, and have been under the radar for a few years now. But when they announced a return to Bangladesh's music on Monday, it was very different in terms of capacity but potentially similar to their impact as musicians.

Shaju and Shezan launched GAAN, the first proper music streaming app for smartphones targeting only Bangla songs, in a press conference at the AS Mahmud Seminar Hall of The Daily Star Centre. “When we were abroad, one of the things we missed most was Bangla songs at our fingertips. We had to either scour the internet for an illegal pirated download, or stream it on Youtube. And we saw all other Bangladeshi expats had the same craving, and that is where the idea germinated from,” said Shaju.

The app, currently available on the Play Store for android smartphones, has a growing library controlled by the company. Registration is free, and users can listen to Bangla music even without registering. The app owners promised not to control entry of any music as long as it is Bangladeshi, and would let the app users decide the success of it. It also has artiste, genre or timeline-based curated streaming radios, options for creating custom playlists and social sharing plugins. 

Eventually, the app will move into taking ads and giving users options of a monthly subscription fee for an ad-free and enhanced user experience (like offline mode), and owners promised to share the revenue generated through it with musicians. The subscription model, they hoped, would catch on very well with Bangladeshis living abroad.

“Technologically, we are always playing catch-up with the rest of the world,” said Shaju, adding that the rest of the world is moving on to subscription-based models of entertainment, while users here still depend on downloads. In a demonstration of the app, he also explained how it would practically give the app user a massive music library on their music player without using any additional memory, just with the help of internet connectivity.

Shezan, meanwhile, said all content uploaded will be taken with permission from either the artiste or their record label as required, and will be non-exclusive. No user will have 'ownership' of the content, but they can access it through the app.

Also speaking at the event, parliament member Nahim Razzaq, veteran musicians Foad Nasser Babu and Hamin Ahmed, and pop diva Elita thoroughly welcomed the initiative, terming it a timely move and wishing it success.

“We know there are going to be obstacles, but we are moving forward with the right intentions,” Shaju told The Daily Star.

There is still a fair way to go for the startup, in terms of enriching its library to fighting business competition, keeping it legally clean and reaching it out to the masses, but it sure is good to see someone come up with a timely technological forward step for the country's music industry.