Chidi Okeke
By AYO ONIKOYI A veteran entrepreneur in the entertainment and music industry in Nigeria. who’s the founder of Mcomm Solutions and Services, a technology driven company offering a wide range of content, mobile technology and music-based solutions and services across the African has raised alarmed that the Nigerian music industry may be in danger if strategic steps are not taken to entrench structures that will stand the test of time and explore technology-driven means to drive our local music content beyond the shores of the country to the desired audience in the Sub-Saharan Africa and the world at large.
Chidi made this dire observation at a media parley in Lekki,
Lagos while reviewing the lots of the music industry in the last 5-10 years. He
asserted that outsiders in the business of music may still be seeing boom in
the industry and maintained that Nigeria remains on the top of the log in
Africa but warned that the rest of Africa is fast catching up at a pace that is
both scary and worrisome. “ Nobody knew what really happened in 2018, there was
a huge drop in revenue across board in the music industry. Toward the end of
2017 and the entire 2018 revenues from Caller Ring Back Tune (CRBT) streaming
and concerts dropped significantly because of the fall of naira to the dollar.
This brought an interesting twist that saw artistes taking their performances
abroad where it became more profitable to generate revenue. What more,
countries like South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and others are catching up fast
using technology to deploy their content to the world. The biggest challenge in
Nigeria is the lack of defined structure. Here, you see the artiste being in
charge of his business when he should be more concerned with the creative
aspect and allow professionals to take care of business for him. In developed
countries it is the corporates that set up structures not the artistes. It is
not an artiste that set up Sony Music, Spotify or Apple Music, it is the
corporates that understand the business of music and set up structures to make
money for the artistes. All they do is set up platforms and allow the artistes
to create content through their talents. In Nigeria the reverse is the case.
The artiste appoints managers and dictates the business tone. Artistes like
D’banj and P-Square made a truckload of money back then because they had a
semblance of a good structure behind them,” he said.
Speaking further, he harped on the importance of structures
that would benefit the stakeholders and the artistes and the industry at large.
“Through the various stages of music development in Nigeria in contemporary
times a major challenge is lack of structure. The structural gap is in the
business side of the industry, ranging from artiste’s management to record
labels, legal issues, skill sets, production quality, human capacity, talent
management, lack of corporate bodies and government support and a lot more. The
absence of these make the industry concentrate on pushing contents that are
perceived acceptable to the people to determine the popularity of the artistes.
This is also making the industry operate below its actual potential and if the
right structures are in place, there will be growth. A country like the US
started just at the level Nigeria is now. Overtime, they built structures that
helped them overcome their challenges. They invested in infrastructure –
studio, equipment and training of their people from the business managers to
the artiste management and talent hunt business development. We have the
numbers, which is good for the industry. We have the can-do spirit that drives
every artiste through entrepreneurial mind set. However, this will not be
sustainable without the right structure in place. Other countries in Africa are
fast rising in the music stage by leveraging on technology, they have the skill
set through training and they have a bit of structure to support them,” he
added. With his vast experience spanning over 17 years in the entertainment and
communications industry, Chidi, who was part of the team that packaged D’banj
during the glorious years of Mo’Hits laid out his plans for the rejuvenation of
the industry to fight off the bludgeoning charge from other countries in Africa.
“ Technology and training are the solution,” he said. “We need a structure that
separates the artistes from the business side of the process. Our artistes need
to have open minds for thorough training; vocal, performance rehearsals, use of
advance equipment in production, adaption and understanding of use of software
for production. It will help artistes concentrate and focus on the creative
side ; creating content, but leave the production, marketing and distribution
to the business managers to run as a business. Our artistes and music producers
need to attend courses for 2 – 3 months at intervals to understand new trends
in the industry both in technology for production and musical training to
enhance creativity and quality of lyrics and content produced. This will
attract the corporate bodies to assist in setting up structures to support the
industry if they see it a good business to invest in where the entire ecosystem
will benefit. We need to start having these conversations in the media space,
government circles, corporate bodies and international investors. This
investment must be medium and long term. We should be deliberate to avoid short
term expectation of returns if we must grow the music industry as a sustainable
sector,” he added. Chidi is an entrepreneur with significant experience across
multiple regions; this enables him to give insights into the challenges in the
industry. One of which, is poor access to talent development opportunities in
the industry. He’s presently set to launch a music streaming platform named
‘UduX’, that has clear monetisation allocation to all stakeholders who put
their music on the platform. According to him, It is a solution to the
challenges of piracy, revenue sharing formula for artistes, owners of the
platforms, investors and listeners.
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