Nigeria’s Hip-hop Industry Booming

@free me what’s p square offence here, they are trying to promote
naija and yet all u could do is hate them, pls brother don’t hate learn to love

Pleaassee they earned it, they can do whatever with what their money abeg…Learn to love for real!
Naija all day!

Insightful, thanks.

That’s an unsustainable situation, though. If your profitability is predicated on local underdevelopment, what happens when people start to get broadband internet connections and can download?

In any case, it’s also based on a flawed notion of how the music business works. Record sales only line the pockets of labels; for artists all they do is provide hype. The way your classic record industry contract is structured, the label advances the artist so many dollars against album sales, which ostensibly goes to studio time, engineers, any supplementary writers and studio musicians that have to be hired, etc. When sales are counted, the retailer gets a cut then the distributor gets a cut, then the record company gets its gross. It first takes its own cut for “management” and “development” and other services, then it deducts the advance on the record given to the artist (”recoups its investment”), then the breakdown to producers, composers and artists can occur. On your typical $12 album, an artist may make less than $1. Much less.

Oh, that’s not even mentioning the fact that the record companies initially “creatively” accounted for digital sales in such a way that artists weren’t getting a cut – but don’t tell Metallica, or any of the other idiots who were quick to cut “Pirating Music is Stealing” PSAs. LOL.

Anyway, touring is where the money is. Not that there isn’t money – big money, at that – in album sales, but it’s been shown to be a vulnerable revenue stream, and it’s negligible for artists signed to traditional record labels (I’ll talk about non-traditional labels in a minute). Unsurprisingly, record companies are trying to restructure some deals so they can get a slice of tour profits!

So, non-traditional record labels. These are smaller, boutique joints, sometimes independents, sometimes imprints of the majors, that for the most part have embraced online distribution in novel ways. Some of their approaches include Prince’s music club, where members who pay an annual fee get to download his albums for free, early, and even get bonus material; one label offers ProTools project files to fans so they can create their own mixes and encourages them to fileshare the music, because those fans will show up at concerts, and buy merchandise to boot (and maybe still pick up a “live” CD or a “studio sessions” CD). Even some of the majors have been warming up to this, with recent experiments by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Basically, we’re entering a mature market where the record companies – if they survive – and artists need to react to audiences, given the fans what they want, and make sure the fans view it as valuable.

And, sooner or later, that problem will come to Nigeria, too. The thing is, if you get out ahead of it now, then there’s plenty of money to be made internationally from digital distribution without even doing shows – pure gravy fed by news and video reports of your work back home. Not taking advantage of it is basically leaving money on the table.

(Up and coming artists, if you need a manager, holla at your boy! LOL.)