Roster
South African AI-driven music business platform founded by Thabiso Khati, covering booking, releases, royalties and rights registration for artists and managers.
- Based in
- South Africa
- Founded
- 2026
- Founder
- Thabiso Khati
- Website
- rosterapp.ai
Roster is an AI-driven music business platform built by JO:LA Labs, a South African music-tech company. It launched in September 2026 as what its founder calls an “end-to-end music business operating system,” letting artists, managers and independent labels handle booking, release planning, royalty tracking, collecting-society registration, contracts and fan CRM through a conversational interface rather than a set of separate tools and spreadsheets.
The company is independent, founded and led by Thabiso Khati, a South African music executive with three decades in the industry. Khati previously headed marketing at Gallo Record Company, where he worked on releases by Skwatta Kamp and ProKid, held roles at Universal Music Group including Head of U-Live Africa, and co-founded the entertainment company Cashtime Life in 2013 with Teargas members K.O and Ma-E.
Roster began onboarding artists, managers and labels by invitation in South Africa and other African markets before a wider rollout, with the stated intent of building for emerging-market conditions first and competing in Western markets afterward. It runs a freemium model with four paid tiers reported at between roughly R299 and R1,899 a month.
