In Equatorial Guinea, a small Central African petro-state where music streaming has not taken hold, music circulates primarily via WhatsApp—a Meta-owned messaging app never designed for music distribution. This paper examines WhatsApp as an accidental alternative to the dominant infrastructures of digital music circulation and asks whether its architectural features circumvent core logics of platform capitalism—algorithmic recommendation, data extraction, copyright enforcement—more effectively than purpose-built alternatives such as P2P file-sharing networks, netlabels, and producer-oriented platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork—including participant observation in recording studios, interviews with musicians and fans, and analysis of WhatsApp-based music sharing networks—the paper explores how digital music exchange in Equatorial Guinea is shaped not only by global technological infrastructures but also by local economic and political formations, most notably a longstanding oil-rich authoritarian state and the musical patronage it sustains. The analysis reveals a paradox: WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, absence of algorithmic recommendation, and lack of licensing agreements create a distinct space for circulation, yet these very features—combined with state control of internet access and entrenched patronage logics—prevent artists from monetizing their music, reinforcing their dependence on political elites. The paper contributes to scholarship on digital platforms in the Global South by showing that resistance to platform capitalism may emerge not from intentional design but from infrastructural accident.