Wake up call for musicians, stakeholders of the music industry

The Cameroonian music industry is booming right now with talents. Record labels and artistes/musicians alike are jostling for the top spot. But the way the industry is going right now, with controversy after controversy, poor marketing, poor promotion to name just a few is not good for the industry.

We have used MI Abaga (Nigerian Rapper) and Chocolate city (Record Label) as a case study to see how our darling industry can grow fast.

The music business has become the musicians business. Artistes/musicians have transcended the dependency on record labels to become owners of their own independent record labels. From relying on other people’s business structures, artistes/musicians are now building their own business structures to manage the evolution of their music careers.

Artistes have successfully combined the creative and the business functions of managing their music by substituting the role of the Chief Executive Officer to emerge as Chief Executive Artiste in charge of both creative and business in the new music economy. MI stands out in the growing list of Nigerian chief executive artistes in charge of running their independent business organisations.

The artiste’s emergence and take-over from Audu Maikori, a lawyer cum entrepreneur and founder, to become the new boss of Chocolate City, further lends credence to the phenomenon and evolution of the new generation “Chief Executive Artiste”.

It takes more than an artistic and musical talent for an artiste to successfully manage and coordinate the business of his/her music. But what do you do when you suddenly wake up to discover that you have been saddled not only with managing your own individual music business but that of fourteen other artistes signed to a label of which you have just been made the chief executive officer? T

his was the reality that confronted Jude Abaga aka MI, on his recent emergence as the Chief Executive Officer of Chocolate City Records which has been described as the biggest record label in Nigeria in terms of the number of artistes that are signed on to the label. Prior to MI’s appointment as the new boss of the label, he was an executive director and an artiste under the same label. He also established Loopy Music, his personal label which has since been acquired and absorbed into Chocolate City as part of the re-organisation that preceded his emergence as the new CEO of Chocolate City.

MI’s candidacy and emergence as the CEO of the biggest record label in Nigeria have evolved gradually over time from when he was first signed as an artiste fresh out of Jos to Audu Maikori owned Chocolate City records. His description of how the label has grown in the last ten years and how they have learnt to manage and re-invest back scarce financial resources into the promotion of their music at the label in the early years shows the level of financial discipline and ability to manage their music business efficiently with limited resources.

For instance, he described how they shot the video for his single ‘Safe’ with just two hundred and fifty thousand naira only (N250, 000.00), and how the profit made from the business generated by ‘Safe’ was re-invested back into shooting another video with the proceeds re-invested into shooting another video for Jesse Jagz and also into the business of running the label and funding of more production projects. Chocolate City’s business model and philosophy is founded on a sustainable approach which emphasis the discipline of spending from what you earn.

To successfully navigate through the music business and build a sustainable career as an artiste in the new music economy, it is very important for the modern artiste/musician to develop music market intelligence, and to learn to think and act like a business, – this is one of MI’s forte. The new music economy is brand-led; a fact that is evident in the way successful artistes all over the world interacts and collaborates with commercial brands through brand associations and partnerships.

MI strongly believes that at some point the artiste must be able to go to the brands, have meetings with them, sit in their organisations and plan creative ways of engaging with them. To think that the artiste is just someone who writes and performs music only is to be stranded in the Stone Age; the artiste/musician in the new music economy is essentially a business entity that is providing music products/services custom-made to meet the needs of an identified market/audience.

MI is quite aware and familiar as an artiste with the state of the Nigerian music industry especially that of record labels as endangered species; he said “Labels are dying in Nigeria, we looked back at ten years of Chocolate City and there is no label that is fully functional as a company as we are, it is tough”. MI attributes the success of the label to the emphasis they placed on the importance of having a strong and well-coordinated internal process and music business strategy.

He opined that “What you find at a certain point as an artiste is that, for you to maximise your earnings, your activities must be fifty percent corporate or organisational as opposed to creative”. He believes that regardless of what you do in music as an artiste, whether you are a rapper or singer, being able to interact and partner with brands is fundamental to fulfilling your music business objectives and goals. The income from selling music alone does not generate enough for artistes anymore; the artiste must therefore be able to think big outside the box.

The goal of any artiste who truly wants to succeed in the new music economy is to master the art and the business processes of music. It is not enough to have the artistic/musical talent for writing and singing music, it is more important to see your music as a product/service from a business perspective and to know how to successfully build your brand and effectively distribute and market your brand to the relevant market/audience.

It is also vital to have a strategy on how to distribute and sell your music brand and maximise the reach to the people who constitute the core market for your music. Thinking and acting like a business is the first step to becoming your own chief executive artiste. The future will reveal MI’s true capability and how his reign as the boss of Chocolate City will impact on the music career success of the fourteen artistes under his watch who are filled with great expectations.