Bringing an important collection of world music onto the digital stage, Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Zune division and South Africa’s Gallo Music Group have created an exclusive partnership to digitally offer a collection of music from Gallo’s esteemed catalog for the first time. Fifty albums spanning nearly eight decades of South African music will be available for a la carte and Zune™ Pass subscription downloads on Zune Marketplace beginning today.

The Gallo catalog represents the entire recorded history of South African music from the 1930s to today. From well-known songs such as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which was originally released in South Africa before becoming an international hit, to Grammy-winning artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Gallo catalog encompasses a broad range of genres and sounds. Although the catalog is dominated by traditional South African hooks, Gallo sees a lot of American influence in its sound and believes it brings a different perspective to the world music genre.

Each week in May, Zune Marketplace will focus on sounds from a different era in addition to current chart-topping rock, reggae, hip-hop and pop music artists from South Africa. For four weeks, the Zune Marketplace editorial team will pair featured albums and playlists with insightful editorial content to help tell the story of this rich musical legacy, the majority of which has never been released in the United States in any format, physical or digital.