THE NAME
Born in the shebeens of 1920s Johannesburg.
Marabi takes its name from a South African musical style that grew up in the shebeens of 1920s Johannesburg — fluid, improvisational, built from whoever walked through the door. Like the music, Marabi meets you where you are and builds something new from what you bring. You can even start an original Marabi style station from the seed selection page.
HOW IT WORKS
Start with what you love. Marabi™ does the rest.
1
Seed it
Search for up to five artists or songs, explore by genre — jazz, Afrobeat, blues, bossa nova, Kwela and dozens more — or simply describe a mood with Marabi AI.
2
React
Thumbs up pulls the station toward a track’s sound. Thumbs down or Skip pushes it away and bans the track. Not Now drops a song from the queue with no penalty.
3
It learns
Every reaction reshapes the station’s DNA — eleven musical traits that shift in real time while your long-term taste profile grows.
FEATURES
A radio station with a mind of its own.
Station DNA
Eleven musical traits — from Groove and Brightness to Vocal grit and Space — shown as a live barcode that shifts as you listen.
Gene Sculptor
Drag sliders to sculpt this session’s sound — boost analog warmth, dial down distortion — and compare it with your long-term taste.
Marabi™ AI Prompt
Describe it — “late-night melancholy jazz with muted trumpet” — and Marabi picks the seeds and sets the traits. Powered by on-device Apple Intelligence.
Lineage Graph
Explore each track’s influences, contemporaries and descendants, then tap any artist to graft them into your station.
Sync to Flow
Let the station follow your day: more energy and groove in the morning; slower, acoustic and spacious late at night.
Shebeen mode
Hosting with Apple TV? Everyone on the Wi-Fi with Marabi blends their taste into one station that suits the whole room.
Variety slider
Stay Narrow and close to your seeds, keep it Familiar, or go Wild for surprising discoveries further from the centre.
Saved stations
Save any station with its seeds, DNA and variety. Edit seeds later — everything syncs through iCloud.
Up Next, your way
See what is coming with a match score for every track, and banish anything you are not in the mood for.
STATION DNA
Eleven genes. One station that sounds like you.
Every track is scored on eleven musical traits. Your thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs move the station’s DNA toward the sound you love — and in the Gene Sculptor you can override any trait for the session.
Energy
Intensity and drive — from barely-there ambience to relentless propulsion
Brightness
High-frequency sparkle: hi-hats, string bite, air above the mix
Groove
Rhythmic pocket and swing — how much the beat makes you move
Acoustic
Organic, unamplified texture — wood, gut and breath over electronics
Analog warmth
Tape warmth and tube saturation — the glow of analogue circuitry
Rhythmic detail
Percussion complexity and density — how busy and layered the beat is
Vocal presence
How prominent and forward the vocals sit in the mix
Vocal grit
Rasp, grain and rawness in the voice — a lived-in texture
Distortion
Crunch, overdrive and saturation — from light bite to full noise
Harmonic richness
Chord complexity and tonal richness — dense voicings score high
Space / air
Reverb, room and atmospheric depth — how much the sound breathes
ONE STATION, EVERY SCREEN
Built on Apple Music. Made for every Apple screen.
Marabi streams full tracks from your Apple Music subscription — no extra hardware, no extra account. Start a station on your phone and it follows you to the TV, your wrist and the car.
iPhone & iPad
The full experience: seeds, Marabi AI Prompt, Station DNA and the Gene Sculptor. Route to any HomePod or AirPlay speaker.
IOS / IPADOS 26.5+
Apple TV
Build stations with the Siri Remote, hand playback between phone and TV, host a Shebeen, and enjoy a living screensaver.
TVOS 26.5+
Apple Watch
Now playing, match score, thumbs, skip, variety and your saved stations — on your wrist, without taking out your phone.
WATCHOS 26.5+
CarPlay
Saved stations, genres and full thumbs controls on the car screen. Everything you do on the road trains the station.
ANY CARPLAY CAR
Saved stations sync between iPhone, iPad and Apple TV through iCloud. Requires an active Apple Music subscription.