Microsoft's Zune division has created an exclusive partnership with South Africa's Gallo Music Group to distribute music from its vast catalog of world music digitally in the United States for the first time.

Beginning today on Zune Marketplace, 50 albums spanning nearly eight decades of South African music are available.

"As a longtime fan of world music and the Gallo label in particular, it's impossible for me to overstate what an exciting development this is for the world music community," said Jon Kertzer, senior music programmer at Microsoft and host of a long-running world music program on KEXP, 90.3 FM.

The Gallo catalog covers South African music from the 1930s to the present, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lucky Dube and Simphiwe Dana.

Each week in May, Zune will focus on sounds from a different era, in addition to current rock, pop, reggae and hip-hop. Zune plans to offer more of the Gallo catalog in the future.