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African music industry comes of age 08 Feb 2016

I love music and it’s always exciting “discovering” new forms of music and new artistes. That excitement continues with music in Africa.
    
Even before I first set foot on the continent, I understood how singing, dancing and music are important parts of African culture. Music is played at weddings, funerals, and other rites of passage in African societies. In the 1980s, I used to listen to Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Youssou N’Dour etc. I also discovered how music could be used as an instrument of protest. For example, in the fight against apartheid in South Africa – with songs from musicians like Tracy Chapman (Freedom Now), Hugh Masekela (Bring Him Back Home) and Johnny Clegg (Asimbonanga) which helped focus and galvanise the world against the regime.

However, whilst the modern music scene in Africa used to be dominated by international artistes, local artistes are mostly what you hear in the clubs and bars of Africa today. From Lagos to Nairobi to Harare, local musicians are blending styles and rhythms from all over the world with local African music developing distinctive new sounds that are clearly African but unlike anything that I had heard in the past. Today, more than 70% of all music bought in Africa is African.

Kenyans have infused reggae and jazz into their local music scene whereas urban Nigerian music has been strongly influenced by rap and hip-hop. One thing is for sure, modern African music has woken up, is changing and is bursting out within and outside Africa. The energy is partly driven by Africans re-discovering their inbuilt musical heritage and partly by the ease in accessibility to markets and music production.

Today, music studios are cheaper to run because of the leaps in technology and software. All that is required to record music with a relatively high level of sophistication is a laptop, a four-channel console, a keyboard and a microphone – which can be purchased for an average price of $1,500.

Lagos, November 2015

It would be remiss of me to talk about the music industry in Africa without mentioning my attendance at the Lagos Jazz Series (www.lagosjazzseries.com) concert in Muri Okunola Park. It was a fabulous  evening of great music and some very dodgy audience. The highlight for me was the after-concert meeting with Seun Kuti and American hip-hop artiste, Mos Def (Yasiin Bey), and having my photo taken with Seun.

My host for the evening was Dr. Nkiru Balonwu – the charming CEO of Spinlet (www.spinlet.com). Immediate disclosure here – Spinlet is a client, hence the inevitable and unapologetic focus on Spinlet.

What’s the music industry worth in Africa?

The short answer is that no one knows what the music industry is worth in Africa. It is very difficult to keep track of incomes and revenues in the music industry because of piracy and informal sales by street vendors of pirated CDs and DVDs.

Nigerian star D’banj (Oladapo Oyebanjo) said that, “The music industry is the biggest export from Africa after oil and gas.” Whilst I am skeptical of this claim by Mr. D’banj (even with the economic doldrums caused by Brent crude at sub 30 USD per barrel levels), anecdotal evidence suggests that the music industry in Africa is growing and thriving. For example, the annual Nigerian live performance revenues reached around 105 million dollars last year. This is despite the infrastructural problems and copyright issues.

The future is digital

So how is music being sold and delivered in Africa today? When I was in Nairobi last summer, I went into Kibera (the largest slum in Africa) and as Kenyan reggae was blasting out of some of the largest speakers I had ever seen, a vendor was selling CDs. My Kenyan friend told me that the CDs were mostly mixed by local singers with some being pirated CDs of established artistes.

However, the way Africans consume music is changing – primarily driven by the increase in the ownership of smartphones. It won’t be my best prediction ever, but this trend will continue on an upward trajectory and simply follow what has been happening in developed countries. Whilst the CD is not quite dead, CD sales in the three key markets of South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are declining as consumers switch from physical CDs to digital music.

It is forecast that digital's share of total spending on recorded music on the continent will rise to 67% by 2017 driven by the growth of smartphones and access to broadband and 3G and 4G.

At the end of 2013, there were 778 million mobile subscriptions in Africa – this is said to have reached one billion during 2015 and predicted to reach 1.2 billion by the end of 2018. As smartphones are getting cheaper, it is bringing more people online across the continent and with it bringing music to the masses.

Telcos are driving data expansion and consumption

African telecommunication companies have seen that the future is selling data through smartphones. Therefore, they have formed partnerships with phone manufacturers to sell affordable smartphones with voice and data bundles. Kenya’s Safaricom is one example. Its cheap smartphone strategy started in 2011 with the launch of the Huawei Ideos – an Android phone that was sold for $100. This was an incredible success with the initial stock selling out within two week. After this success, Safaricom partnered with:
•    Microsoft to launch the 4Afrika smartphone; and
•    Intel to launch the popular low-cost smartphone, Yolo (which sold 5000 units within two weeks of its launch).

Monetizing music

So you are a young African musician and want to sell your music. Of course, you also want to become very famous in the shortest time possible, so you are prepared to give your music away for nothing (at least initially). How do you get into the business and launch your career?

The quickest way of getting your music to market and reaching the widest possible audience is using a digital platform like Spinlet. Here are tips to help inform the aspiring African musician.

1.    How do artistes get access to digital platforms?
•    Directly, by email or other file transfers; and
•    Through content aggregators (like Tunecore, Orchard, CD Baby and Songcast).

2.    How do they make money?
•    Platforms like Spinlet, iTunes and Spotify pay royalties (some artistes prefer non-paying but very popular free streaming platforms like music blogs and online radio instead, hoping for a quicker route to fame and fortune);
•    Biggest revenue earners have been brand endorsements, live performances and revenues from caller ring back tunes (CRBT).

3.    What can you do to increase your chances of reaching audiences?
•    Ensure you have a digital footprint (social media);
•    Engage with and grow your fan base; and
•    Tie up with distribution platforms (e.g. Spinlet is promoting the Spinlet Sound of 2016 - a list compiled by popular artistes, DJs, industry executives, OAPs, club promoters and critics, predicting the biggest and most influential music acts for 2016).
    
Whilst digital platforms are the future of the music industry in Africa, the lack of bandwidth and cost of data plans pose a challenge to this relatively young African industry. Currently, most consumers still prefer downloads/ownership rather than streaming/access because of the bandwidth/cost issue. However, this will change (as it has in the developed world) as bandwidth improves and costs come down.

Pirates of Africa – copyright

I recall speaking to a Chinese friend of mine about copyright in China. Her response was: “In China there is no copyright. Only the right to copy.”
    Unfortunately, this also applies to the music industry in Africa where a key challenge is piracy and the lack of intellectual property protection. Historically, artistes in Africa have not had any control over how, where or to whom their music is distributed. Most do not see any revenue from the sale of illegal CDs and have had to generate income in other ways – such as concerts, events and endorsements.

Globally, the music industry has embarked on a number of initiatives, including teaming up with internet service providers to curb the problem. Greater government support is also required to help curb piracy. COSON (the Copyright Society of Nigeria) has been consulting for a while on regulations for digital distribution and consumption in Nigeria. The areas these regulations need to cover include:
•    Ensuring composers earn revenue from music broadcast on all platforms including digital platforms;
•    The banning or licensing of “offline download centres” (i.e. vendors who plug customers’ mobile phones into their laptops and copy over hundreds of songs for a modest fee).

As always, it’s not enough to pass regulations. The government and regulatory authorities need to be resourced and incentivised to police and enforce these regulations with meaningful penalties. Piracy and lack of intellectual property rights protection stifle investments and reduce revenue (both to the artistes and the distributors). This in turn has a negative impact on job creation, tax revenue and foreign exchange. In addition, there is no way of tracking what has been sold.

Consumer education

Consumer education is critical in combating piracy. There is a need to establish a “buying culture” and a “royalties accounting culture,” to counter piracy and distribution issues. The corresponding problem on the artistes’ side is that many do not factor any income besides live performance and endorsement fees in their revenue projections, and regularly give away vast amounts of their music for free.

We need to help consumers understand that the musical experience they get from pirated music is an inferior one. As Rob Wells, former President, Global Digital Business at Universal Music Group, who is now Chief Commercial Officer at Crowdmix, UK’s social music start-up, said: “Pirate services are clunky and old fashioned compared to the legal services available. The pirate option just cannot offer that complete consumer experience.”

The diaspora and God

Whilst the core market for African music is at home in Africa, there is an increasing realisation that the African diaspora is a massive potential market. As I write this whilst in Singapore, I am listening to Yemi Alade and Tiwa Savage (who I saw perform live at a wedding once – awesome!) on the Spinlet App. This follows on from Spinlet’s recently launched website that is accessible outside Africa. Just as Indian streaming services like Saavn and Gaana appeal to the Indian diaspora across the world, Spinlet is finding a global audience either with roots in Africa, or simply an interest in African music.

Nkiru says that Spinlet is keen to accelerate its international expansion and serve the huge market for African music around the world. With an estimated 10 million diaspora Africans living in Europe alone, she believes that this audience represents a massive opportunity for African music.

Spinlet also launched a gospel-only streaming service in December 2015 – Spinlet Inspire – to tap into the huge role that religion plays in Africa. In Africa, as anywhere else, tailoring your products and services to your customers’ needs and wishes is what helps you win and retain customers.

African music

With digitisation, the time is right for African music to move up the global musical consciousness. Not as some kind of esoteric art form with labels such as “world music” but a new generation of popular music that is accessible, unique and (dare I say it....) hip! Whilst, the prospects are bright for African music, just remember that “Without music, life would be a mistake,” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1889).