Microphone disturbs Haroon’s Taazi.com red carpet launch in Lahore
LAHORE: Taazi.com, Pakistan’s first legal music website & app has launched on Friday in a glittering event held in Lahore. The red carpet launch event was attended by pioneers and legends of the Pakistani music industry including Haroon, Ali Azmat, Noori, Amanat Ali, Fariha Parvez, Xulfi, Call Band, Nouman Javaid, Zamad Baig (winner of Pakistan Idol) and many others.
Taazi.com attempts to revolutionize the Pakistani music industry, by giving power back to the artists. It is a ground breaking one of its kind website made by musicians keeping in mind the needs of musicians in the music industry. Taazi.com is currently the only music website & app in Pakistan that offers monetization for artists’ music through a unique payment system specially developed by the Taazi.com team.
In a market infested with piracy, Taazi.com is an initiative that allows artists to sell their music and earn money from streams and downloads. The local music industry has been devastated by piracy and Taazi.com is a platform that allows artists to take back control of their work and monetize their music
All artists attending the launch event joined Haroon on stage and expressed their support for the revolutionary project. The musicians stressed that there was a great need for such a platform to help revive Pakistan’s music industry. Speaking at the event, Ali Azmat stated that Taazi.com is the only website that prioritizes the rights of the musicians first. It is an excellent initiative that will help promote Pakistani music. Fariha Parvez spoke about how this project will help rejuvenate the music industry; she inspired audiences when she spontaneously broke into a moving song.
The brainchild behind Taazi.com is popular Pakistani singer Haroon, who is also the creator / director of multi-award winning Pakistani animated TV series Burka Avenger. Speaking about the launch of Taazi.com, Haroon said: “Taazi.com attempts to create a revolution in the Pakistani music industry by giving the power back to the musicians; it is an effort to help promote the incredible music talent in Pakistan, discourage piracy and provide artists an opportunity to earn money from their original content. I understand the challenges faced by music artists and as a musician in Pakistan this is a website that I wished existed so I went out and had it made.”
The iTunes model fails in Pakistan because less than 8% of the population have credit cards. Taazi.com’s billing system is unique because it allows users to purchase music by charging their mobile phone balance. Currently, there are over 136 million mobile phone subscribers in Pakistan. Taazi.com has integrated its payment billing system with the major telecommunication service providers, including Mobilink, Zong and Ufone. International customers can also purchase music using Paypal and Credit Cards.
Taazi.com’s interface is user friendly and any artist can directly upload their content and sell it in Pakistan and worldwide. Artists retain 100% ownership of copyrights of all music uploaded on Taazi.com. The majority share of the revenue (70%) goes directly to the artist. This too is a ground-breaking deal for Pakistan since in the past; artists have received only a small fraction of the revenue share from their deals with record labels, telcos and other distributors.
Taazi.com is not only a music distribution platform, it is also a music-based social network allowing users to communicate and follow friends to see what they are listening too. Users can stream and download music, invite friends, create personalized playlists, share songs on their Facebook wall, follow artists and interact with each other.
Taazi.com has been developed by a talented team of programmers and designers based in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Taazi.com app is also available on the Google Play Store and has been receiving extremely favorable reviews. Jib Khan, a Taazi.com app user said: “Easy to use, streamlined, all the music I love is at my fingertips, & easy to discover new music. Nice interface.”
Taazi.com, currently home to over 100,000 songs, 10,000 registered users, 2,000 registered artists is getting over 150,000 page views a month. Taazi.com beta went live last year for testing but immediately became popular with artists and music fans. According to Alexa rankings, Taazi.com is the number 1 ranked music website in Pakistan. This is before the official launch of the website.
All music on Taazi.com has been legally uploaded by Artists or record labels. Taazi.com is strictly against piracy. Music on Taazi.com includes hits by the most popular artists in Pakistan such as Ali Zafar, Jal, Ali Azmat, Mekaal Hassan, Noori etc. It includes classical and folk hits from EMI Pakistan’s catalogue such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mehdi Hassan, Noor Jehan and Abida Parveen as well as songs from the ground breaking Pakistani TV show Coke Studio. Moreover Taazi.com is a platform that is being avidly used by new and upcoming Pakistani artists to release their music. Taazi allows discovery of new music talent.
