Hip Hop and Reggae artists choose mobile phone debuts before digital or physical release

Dec 12, 2006 16:12 GMT  ·  By

Groove Mobile, one of the world's leading mobile music commerce platforms, announced last week a series of exclusive world premieres available starting this week on mobile phones from top hip hop and reggae musicians distributed by The Orchard, the world's leading digital distributor and marketer of independent music.

Developed in a marketing partnership between The Orchard and Groove Mobile, the exclusive world premieres include tracks by Pete Rock, Talib Kweli, DJ Crucial, Max Romeo and U-Roy, all of whom chose to debut their latest releases on mobile phones several weeks before the songs are available either on iTunes or at music stores.

- Available starting this week through Groove Mobile: Exclusive tracks by Pete Rock and Talib Kweli (Nature Sounds). - Available on iTunes Dec. 26 and in CD stores Jan. 2007 DJ Crucial (F5 Records) available in stores Feb. 2007. - Coming on Dec. 11 in Europe & New Zealand and Dec. 12 in North America: Max Romeo (Ariwa) available in stores Jan. 2007; U-Roy (Ariwa) available in stores Jan. 2007.

Leveraging Groove Mobile's global reach to over 85 million wireless customers on a dozen wireless carriers including Sprint (US), Orange (UK), Telenor (Norway), Djuice (Norway), Telecom New Zealand, TMN (Portugal), and PTC Era (Poland) among others, mobile music fans around the globe will be the first to purchase these artists' previously unreleased tracks.

Since debuting its first music platform in 2004, Groove Mobile has received awards and top ratings for ease of use and innovation from consumers, trade associations, industry analysts, magazines and Internet publications. Groove Mobile is also recognized for its industry leadership including powering the first US mobile music service, providing the first US dual download feature, creating the first music discovery recommendations based on purchase history, and launching the first peer to peer sharing of music clips via text messaging.