Abstract This article explores the impact of music streaming platforms on popular Afrikaans music. It sets recent technological developments in digital music distribution against the complex historical backdrop of the Afrikaans language and the histories of social marginalization affecting large parts of its linguistic communities. These patterns have shaped Afrikaans music production, consumption and gatekeeping since the first recorded Afrikaans music in the early twentieth century. A key question arises: how has the fundamental shift in the music economy ushered in by streaming platforms enabled previously marginalized Afrikaans artists – particularly from the Coloured community and speakers of vernacular forms such as Kaaps – to reach wider audiences, thereby breaking with historical patterns? This article draws on interviews with music artists, scholars, producers, mixing engineers, platform founders and executives, as well as analyses of publicly available data from platforms such as Spotify, YouTube and TikTok. The evidence suggests continuity at the centre: white Afrikaans pop still dominates discovery playlists and editorial spaces – whether curated by human editors, algorithms, or both. Yet the peripheries are stirring. The rise of Afrikaans gqom on the Cape Flats and the growing visibility of Koortjies within Coloured Pentecostal circuits show how streaming can surface alternative publics, vernacular aesthetics and new circuits of value.
Van der Merwe (2026) studied this question.