Lanre Masha on Global Deals, Artist Breakouts & Afrobeats Money | Afrobeats Intelligence

It's very true to himself.

They came to me initially that we spoke, we spoke about it, and they were to deal with very expensive for me to do. And shout out that I made a media, they worked. They shot a bunch of really dope content. They had a story, and they stuck to it, and they proved a bunch of people wrong.

Included myself, not saying that I didn't know the music was going to work. I just thought it was expensive. He was like half of the price that they asked me for out of the Dunning. We know no question. As a time when it was young boys and your rich uncle or some guy that just wants to put

money into music, those times that's far out between us. There's no such thing as free money. A lot of people don't understand that. They don't understand that when they record label, when they take that, give you that investment.

They're going to make you sign that paperwork. That paperwork is what's going to determine what that tradeoff is. Are we making back this money? I can tell you there's a majority of it that doesn't make over 10,000. My name is Larry Masher, and I just spoke my truth on Afrobeat to the intelligence.

Afrobeat's intelligence presented by OK Africa. The democratizing African music would joy a can't. It's going to see. So I've known you for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, they're 10 years.

“I think the first time I met you, it's nearly 10 years.”

I think I've known you since 2014. Yeah. Around there. Around then.

The first time I met you, you were the... what were you at trace?

No. I wasn't at trace of 2014. I think I got to trace of 2015. Yeah. But when I first got to trace, I was marking in, something, some little level entry.

That was doing it. Yeah. And before you joined, before you actively began to work with the industry. What was your idea of the space that we're in? Man, that was a tough one because when I first got into, so I came managing Blink.

I came managing Blink. That was like my first leg in, sort, into the industry. Yeah. And at that time, I knew nothing. I knew what I knew, but I knew nothing of this market.

And I had to learn everything from, even a lot by market, how they operate, how things move, how music move across Nigeria. So the simple answers, I didn't have enough data on the industry and I had to become a student. So what did you learn while studying the game? That a lot of things are smoking mirrors.

Everything is packaging. And like consistency can get you far, especially when you're doing the right thing. Okay. And but the concept of the right thing in the music industry, that forever changes.

“Now remember when I joined the game, it was, yeah, I joined Paulson 2013.”

Yeah. I joined Paulson 2012, but I moved to Lagos in 2013.

I joined you first, actually.

I did a lot of time ago. I just remember now. Yeah. Yeah. We did a campaign to get people to listen.

Yeah. Give a feedback. That was a long time ago. I just remember now. And what it meant to do the right thing in the industry has changed over time.

Yeah. Once upon a time, it was the right thing to pirate your music. Yeah. Yeah. That was the way.

And that was the I love my market way, essentially, to go there, to pirate your music.

“If you're just popping, they give you money, it wasn't popping, you have to pay there.”

But even online, it was, it was, the way Nigeria moved music digitally, digitally was to pirate it. We had, okay, we had, not just OK, Jaguda, to exclusives back then. And those tags used to be annoying. There's some certain spaces I go into.

Yeah. And I still had this. And I'm setting records. Yeah. But then how do you track what is the right thing to do in a space that has seen a lot of

So I'll answer that from my own career. Goes. I'm doing the right thing is I think for me is things I kept my name clean.

It was always the right thing for the, from a career standpoint, like just music industry.

Now, I think from, from an artist, I think that changed, like you said, right, it's, what does that look like today? What was that back then, what was the right thing to do back then? One of the things I'll say, I'll give you a good example.

“That's how I think it was, yeah, of likes to party.”

Yeah. It started to take off. Yep. And I think the right thing and the brave thing is to be different and to be courageous about being different and I think that's what Bernie did back then.

And that's what's leading to where he is now. I think I don't know if that's, that answers the question. So think of it in this way. In 2012, to be an Afro-Bits artist, you know, in 2012, then it wasn't even that for a bit. Yeah.

And I do, I'm just, we're just hustling.

Just hustling everybody. I, the only thing it became Afro-Bits per se on like 2015.

Yeah, 2015. Yeah. When it was only that. Yeah, when they coined it. Yeah.

Well, to do the right thing, then, meant in the way you navigate at the space, you have a record. Yep. You promoted the record. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, you're promoting the record. But promotion means you are giving your music to a laba for nothing. DJ. DJs. You're also taking the music out to, you're putting digitally for everybody to have access

to it. No cost to you.

And the money you're expecting is, if you become a star, you can book for shows.

You have booked for shows. Yeah. A lot has changed since then. Yeah. So, you, on a certain level where a path of that industry.

And now, where in an age where the right thing now is to shoot a lot of content. Yeah. Do some TikTok. Yeah. Exactly.

So, for you, navigating the space, how do you know what the right thing is? What's today? No. Just in general. Just seeing the change over time, what do you know what the right thing is?

You are right.

“The right thing is you have to stay true to who you are.”

Whatever it is, whatever medium now you being, you communicate in your message, you have to try to stay as true to yourself as possible. And I think that in this content area, you have to find the way to stay true. Also, right? Yeah.

Back then, it was, you have to go tell about my, you have to promote, you have to get try to get people to pay attention to, you have a way, you do it. And a lot of people did a lot of weird things back then. I remember our artists that fake this death. Yeah.

Now, it's, that was cute. Yeah. It's around. Yeah. Yeah, it's around that time as well.

So I think this, and would you say that's the right thing or the wrong thing, right? Yeah. That's a moral question. I thought it was the right wrong thing then, and I still think it's the wrong thing. Yeah.

“I mean, some people, again, that's what I said, you have to stay true to you.”

Because for him, he probably didn't think it was the right, the wrong thing. You just thought, oh, if I did this, they will pay attention to me. And this is what would happen. Yeah. For this, we don't know, Skibius and I during music artists, he, in 2014, was 2014 or 2015,

and I got to pull this right. Skibius had a situation where he fixed his death. He was signed to five star music. Yeah. I don't even remember.

I just, I remember what happened. Yeah. It was, it was signed to KC and E-Money, five star music. And he met us all thinking he was dead, and then he came back from the dead. I don't know if he could.

Yeah. He later went on years later to have a number of hits. But that particular stunt of Fickin' his death did not work. I mean, he still had a career. So, did he not work?

It didn't work. The music worked later. Yeah. But that stunt did not translate. Yeah.

And now, in this day and age, knowing with the work that you do, what is the right thing for you?

I think today, I think, is, especially today, like, as we sit in here today, Jan, what

is in March, 8th, 25th?

“I think it's March 6th, March 6th, okay, March 6th, 25th, I think the most important thing”

you have to do is really hone your craft and speak truth to your music in a way and find a way to sound different from everybody else, because the formula is starting to cast. Like the formula that everybody's starting to do or everything that's starting to do, because when we have a conversation about African music globally right now, they sing everybody sounds the same.

Everything sounds like, it's the exact same thing.

So I think the ones, the people that are hone in their craft and finding the way to craft their voice in their own unique way are the ones that are going to win. Right? I don't want to go to the win, because if you look at it, there's so many, I'm afraid I do that, as you can get, there's so many, I don't even know how you want to break

it down, but it's all of everything sounds similar, if you listen to a radio, if you listen to even going your charts, you look at listen to the top 50 charts on all these charts that's been, that's there, it's pretty much sounds like the same sound, mostly. And every once in a while you hear, you see something cut through, that's different. And I think the right thing to do right now is to really try to find a way to find a unique

voice that's different from, and not try to follow any kind of formula that's being laid on the ground, it just be artists, it's true artists. You work as director of West Africa for archaith, archaith is the distribution arm of Sony.

“And everyone would admit that you're the money guy, that's what they think.”

But you're the, when people come to you, before people will come to you with the business proposal, I know the artistry has to be on point, but they'll also baked into that proposal would be, hey, I'm trying to climb with my art, but I also have found the roots to make him this make money, even those who haven't found the path to making money, they would also say, I think this is unique enough to generate money.

And how does that, that perspective of staying true to yourself, when you think of making music within the context of where you're making it, the area that you're making it, how do those two things not clash. So when you say error, you say in an error in today's time, the side guys done, how everything is, I mean, it's a difficult thing, right, it's a difficult thing, especially

knowing what the market is like, currently, right, it's a difficult thing to kind of stay, but I've given an example of an artist that came on my radar, January last year, Lona, yeah, Lona is a prime example of somebody that's at its core, it's very true to himself, true, he's been on the podcast, he's been on the podcast, yeah, he poured this hard out in this project, right, and they came to me initially that we spoke, we spoke

about it, and the deal was very expensive for me to do, and I told them, look, man, I really loved this music, it was just too expensive, there's no history for this one, it's really, but the one thing I commend them and the team and shout out, that's for me, and what's in the mind, media, those guys, they worked, they worked, they figured it out, they went, it's going to get, they shot a bunch of really dope content, they had a story

and they stuck to it and they proved a bunch of people wrong, including myself, right, because not saying that in the deployment, not saying that I didn't know the music was going to work, I just thought it was expensive at when they was trying to get the deal done,

“right, because I heard the music, and once soon they're playing the music, I think I listened”

to it for almost four weeks straight, and I mean, this kid is incredible, right, but

me for our redundant, we know, no question, so that's an example of somebody that

stayed true in their self, and they figured it out, right, because if you look at any of these, the matrix of success in Nigeria today, you, I give you say he's not on any of them, yeah, it's almost good to see if he doesn't, it's not in the new path, yeah, but if you, if you went to his show in December, you cannot tell me that guy's not successful, right, because every six or seven hundred people that I was there, word for word every

song, yeah, to me that success, right, and if you look at his, if you look at his album streams and see where it is, it's consistent across the board on every song, right, and

“I think he's built a foundation that he can propel off and kind of build from, and I”

think a lot of people want to get to the top quickly, and they come up with it, formulas and tricks to get them, and a lot of time they actually have nothing, right, and again, it's still smoking mirrors, smoking mirrors, the thing about music and itself, so when you mentioned smoking mirrors, I think about a lot of the things we have, I think about

the industry and the way that it is, yeah, and how the focus has always been, hey, find

any way you can to the money, I feel a bit to the world created numerous outlets for that, social media and the rise of technology and how it intersected with creativity, created numerous outlets for that, and then the music is invented, the story behind it, even though they are touch points that intersect reality of the creator, well, a lot of it is still contrived, a lot of the messaging is still contrived, now we're having the reception being

not contrived too, the inventing reception, the inventing reception, we're seeing numbers

that are numbers, that's me though, that really worries me because I'll tell you why,

“personally, I think that the perception of that being, how success is, is the path to success,”

makes it almost believe, make it believe about anybody can do music, anybody can get it from zero to top 100 on the charts easily because they can manipulate one or two things, but what tends to happen is one, that work ethic that requires you, even for the next level when it happens, because when you get this or now what's right, now what's you have the number one hits, you've now gotten the deal, now you have to get in these rooms and you

have to show, you have to go perform on these stages and you have to show, but there's nothing, there's no meets to back it up, and I think what tends to happen is when you get that high, that you get to, it's actually more dangerous when you don't have anything to hold it up, when you all the way up there, because when it comes down, you're going to be trying to figure it out and trying to chase it, because people are expecting you, when you get

that, they're going to know that you're not the person that you're supposed to be, or like that, that they're looking at, and when those deals start to go bad, I mean, you can hustle it, but two things that's happening, which is happening to our industry as a whole

“now is I think that's starting to become a, but hey, what's going on with these Afrobeat”

skies, right, that's the conversation like, yeah, it's going on now, it's not loud enough yet, just, this rumbles about it, like, I, we show we want to do this deal, that's this makes sense for us, you get, and when that's the happening, that's that's that affect the whole industry as a whole, and eventually there's going to be a less, flow of cash that's going to happen in industry, right, if you're not able to deliver on the numbers, because we

have to think about it, if 80% of the revenue that's coming in, which is roughly around it as a revenue is coming from the outside in, when that market starts to reject what they seem, because you've gotten there by false pretence, pretence, and they listen to the

they get there, right, then the money's flow starts short, and the whole industry is going

“to suffer, right, so us, as a enabling industry, we actually, we create a cancer that”

is going to kill us if we don't kill it, which is the industry, well, how can you kill something that appears to work, doesn't, doesn't really, doesn't really work, actually, like, look at it and you say that in the last two years of it, right, in the invention of these tactics, look at the order artists has come through there, and hard to make superstars, it's been hard for the market to make superstars, right, just look at it, look at it and

look at it and see, see what's going on there, right, this, and there is some superstars

that have been, that's come out last year, that's, in the last couple of years that are like incredibly gifted people, right, and it's almost hard for them to cut through that, you get it, yeah, and getcha, and I think that's to me, that's, that's to the advancement of the industry, right, and I think at a point, we, as an industry, I have to say at least that's saying, hey, but no, yes, but no, this cannot be the case, right, and we have to

have honor, we have to advocate for when we actually see real talent now, we actually voice and speak about it, and we not, because if we let those charts become the only determined effect of what we, what we name is, good, then we've actually given up our voices, yeah. So I'm curious about the intersection between talent and what is being invested in, yep.

“So, take for example, you, you have to lead an entity that has to be profitable, in this”

market, or it has to be profitable in this market, and in a market that's inundated with all of these practices, where numbers are not really numbers, in the market is rife with a lot of, like, on the hand tactics and manipulation, how do you know what's real, without being under rolled, how do you know what's real?

I mean, one thing I've always relied on is good, and good, and actually really listening

to the music and letting the music lead, and determine, I genuinely don't actually look at those numbers when it comes to me making a decision, right, I don't genuinely look at those, I don't look at the numbers as sorts, right, I start with the music first, and then everything else is, like, an addition, music team and the artists, right? Right team before the artist, because I think, so, and you could put it in either way, right,

I think I just said it in an order, but I think all three of those things, I probably

“the most important thing, right, music, because I think that's what we first, that's”

the, that's why we hear, there's nothing else that we're doing if we not focused on, making sure we get the right type of music, right? So, team is, an artist can be good, but a team can make the artist's green, right? The right team can make the artist's green, and I think majority of people's success can be made or break by that core team of people that are working with the artists, right?

In what way? In a sense that if an artist's team don't have any kind of one, good relationships in the industry, how to communicate properly, how to strategize properly, how to make decisions, sound decisions properly, they can be a detriment to the artists, a lot of times, and you see it when you deal with some management, some teams around the artists, and the reason I put them, because most of the time, artists just really just have to show up with talent.

They just have to be there and show up and make sure that everything is, and they deliver on what they've been, they promise as an artist, right? One of the teams that I'll say,

Yeah, right? Let him vibe, let him vibe, what they've been able to build and create with

their team and then the artists, right? They built a path for artists, beyond just sort of artists and incredibly talents in, they just need to protect her. Yeah, that's times, yes, times, they need to protect her and make sure that everything goes where it needs to go,

“and that's what the job is. And without that layer of protection, without that layer of”

acumen and deathness and dealing with the music industry, that potends wrongly for the artists. You say, well, it potends bad for the artist. Sometimes, yes, it does. I think it's I know you, you've dealt with some people, you've dealt with the cadence, you've dealt with to a point like you're like, man, I feel like I'm dealing with the artist, not the management team, for a lot of the times. And also, it also affects how they do business dealing,

like sometimes they get the artists in debt, not knowing that this artist is not going to be going to make this money back, and they come in in the accent for a ridiculous amount of money. And if you look at the calendar year, how much is your artist made, what business does your artists have?

“What justification do you have to demand or act for this? You get it, right?”

But it's a sound team that can know, okay, here's what we want to go, here's what we need,

here's how we can leverage to go up. You just raise the point that is very important in the industry. The issue of not issue, the concept of advance, the concept of advance. I came up with a time in the industry in the Afro-Bits industry where, yeah, we used to, we've always had an advance culture. You go to Alaba then, this Alaba is this huge market in Lagos that used to be the help for distributing Afro-Bits. That was our distribution channel. Yeah, that was all we had as the

distribution channel. And then an artist with an artist with prospects can show up. That wasn't in the streets, artists was in the structure. Yeah, but not from prospect, because it's buzzing, the artist would be buzzing. And then you'll give an advance for it. Yeah, to give him money to print CD. Yeah. And, you know, distribute that for you. Yeah. Now we're in the point where the major's hand to leverage it. Yeah, for the most part, for the most part, yeah, I have a few

other people out here now. So like everybody's like, there's not, there's no artist that if you don't, if you sneeze on TikTok right now, you get a call. Yeah. So, okay, the advance, it's, it's, it's, it's just money guaranteed for you to make the music that you make. Yeah, so it depends all kind of deal that you're doing. So I, for distribution movement, I deal most of these licensing deals, right? Okay. So one that means is that we license in the music for X amount of years.

And sometimes there is an advance, but that advance is not for you to put in your pocket to go, but it's advance for you to finish the project or complete the work that you're doing, right?

“On the record label side, sometimes our advance is upkeep. That's what, what they collect a lot more”

from that, because they, they're going to probably do a 360 deal. They're going to probably take a heavier percentage depending on what deal structure that you have. When a, when a distribution deal, most of the advance that you, an advance, you get is really to be, where is the project to finish the project. And most people don't even, don't understand that concept of it. A lot of times, they might think that, so if you get an, and you don't get an advance, it's rare that

you really get an advance. But when you do get an advance from a, for a project is usually to finish the project. Most of you might think it's money for them to spend on other things. Yeah, but it's very money. It's not free money. It's not free money. It's not free money. Because you, you tie to it, right? You tie to that, and you might not be able to release music, especially if it's an exclusive deal, right? For, if you're doing a exclusive for four years, and they give you, let's say, 50k.

And out of that 50k, they give you maybe 10k of it, and as an advance, and you spend that 10k,

you deliver a project. And for the first year, maybe let's say you made $5,000. You're still

on recoup, $45,000. Right? And you think that for the next four years, you might not be able to

Right? And there's really, I want EP, or one project that you put out. And now you're scrambling and trying to figure out how you can make it work. So it's not free money. And everything is sort of like is a loan of sort, and depends on how you structure your deal, it might just be stuck

“in a situation. So most people don't understand them. And that's why you see a lot of people”

kind of arguing online about somebody taking advantage of them or something. Which some deals are bad. I'm not going to say those some deals are not bad, but it's you invest money into an artist in the early stages. You have rights to certain things. That's what that trade-off is. And well, in Nigeria here, we've seen the advanced culture where people are looking for free money. Yeah. See an artist. Just randomly, this story plays out. It's a stereotypical story.

You're honest, it pretty much happens all the time. And artists shows up, gets a buzz and single. A record label with a financial watch, says hey, a local label that is. A local label. So you stick this amount of money, give us more music. Yeah. I don't think people can see that that the loan. They see it as reward for the art for their brilliance. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the things that I say your team and that is super

super important. When you have somebody on your side, that guy just said, hey, if we take this money,

this is what we're giving up. There's always opportunity costs. There's a cost to something,

when there's no such thing as free money. Right. Even when people dash you money, like this, there's something that they, that they're looking for. Yeah. Right. At the end of it,

“it's a one day. Yeah. That's not to pay me to pay me back. Um, so I think a lot of people don't”

understand that. They don't understand that. It's when a record label and local record label, when they take that, give you that investment. I mean, there's some people that actually might genuinely just like you, because if you're in a giant that's money flowing around sometime, they might just dash you money saying, good do. Right. But most people are going to make you signing a paperwork. And that paperwork is what's going to determine what that trade-off is.

And as a culture, as a culture, you mentioned earlier that a lot of the money that flows within the system now is money that's commenting from the outside. Yeah. And that's cherry of it. I mean, cherry of the money deals now are like, uh, most people are in distribution deals, label deals, there's rare. Um, as a time when it was y'all boys and your rich uncle, or some guy that just wants to put money into music, those times, it's far out between nine.

There's not much of those in the market. They're still some people still doing it, but there's not much of those in the market. Because the institutional funding exists. That's coming because those coming dollars a lot of time. Yeah. And Afro Bates has been collecting this money for the last six, eight years. Mm-hmm. Even not longer. Even not longer. Yeah. This is 2025. Yeah.

That's the first major deals starting to go out like maybe was 20, 20, 16, 20, 15. Yeah.

Because I think it was David first or was first one of those. I started to get the new money. Yeah. It was coming in. Do you think we as a culture Afro Bates as a culture has has been good for it? Um, defined good for it. Good for it in terms of I'll just hit us straight. Are we making back this money? Money. Some people are, okay? Some people are. Some people are doing incredibly well. I mentioned terms earlier. She's doing incredibly well. Right when it

comes to where the investment and what she's making, I think she's doing incredibly well. I think burner is probably the same bracket. I'm sure all the big, big art, I'm big five. I agree. You

want to call them. I haven't, they haven't been incredible running. Right. And I think the last

“biggest hit that we've had was probably what was it calm down. Remember that hit a billion? Yeah.”

Yeah. So, I mean, I know Tyler and Tim's and me just hit it now, but like I think from Afro Beach standpoint when we started, I think Raymond was the one that just crossed. Yeah. I hit the

what he's bringing in, right? I think some people are. I don't think all the deals are. If you take

“average of it, I'll see on the average we probably not. But I think there's some deals. And I don't”

have full insights on every deal as come in. I know, I can tell you, this is what I can tell you, right? I can tell you that a lot of deals that I've seen and some of the deals that even we have sometimes, not all of them makes the money back. I can tell you there's a majority of it that doesn't make over 10,000 a year. Right. There's a majority of some of those deals that don't make 10,000 a year. Right. And a lot of these artists don't understand the mechanics of that, right?

Because if you think, right, think, just put this in perspective. Yeah. It's about 150,000 or more

songs being uploaded every day. True. Right. Out of those 150,000, there's this also going to, there's also the big A list, the B list that's dropping music. Right. And let's look at all the platforms where you can earn money from, right? You have Spotify, Apple, Audio Mac, boom, boom, I mean, yeah. Yeah. I'm on my partner. Right. Almost so you have all the DSPs. Right. Now,

“put that in perspective locally. Right. How many people do you know as subscribe to these platforms?”

Not a lot. Right. And then put that into now the pace pay rates of these platforms,

what you get is already low globally. Now, if you think about our market, right, there's not too many

people with premium subscription. You understand? Yeah. Right. So that means that we actually even earn in less. Right. So from a crazy standpoint, you think about you need about nine streams in Nigeria to get one outside. No way. Right. So when you start to think about those numbers, you start to think, wait, does this actually make financial sense when somebody's acting for a certain. So one Nigerian stream operates the translates into nine streams from the West, from the West.

Right. You get it. Right. So when you start to think about it in that scale, you start to look at it. I wait. This thing doesn't make any sense to invest that much money into it. Right. And we're still growing, right. We're still growing that industry. My prayer is for us to grow to a point where that that we have way more valuable premium streams and also for some of the DSPs to pay a little bit more. Right. But it's still a very tough hurdle for us to get through.

So the money is slow and a lot of these deals, a lot of the offers that's coming in, they're not worth it when you think about it in that sense. Then what's the incentive to continue investing? Because this is one that's still the epic sense of culture in the world right now. If you think about what's going on in the world, this is still where everything is happening. We just look to everything in the world right now. I think that we had epic sense of cool.

We started to change. We also need alternative to what hip hop is known, which has now had a negative like a dark light over it. We need alternative to that. And it's been working, it's been working over time for, and as in any margin market, I think that our numbers, we have a large number of people, they're not payable all the time, but we have a large

“number of people. That's why our social media is so strong. I always tell people, I always tell people,”

I look for what you need, Nigeria, for us to make enough noise to have enough, enough push that enough people outside can hear you. Because when they hear you pick them, they'll listen to you. Right? Because we have that culture currency where if you think about what the Diaspora is listening to a check-in for a lot of times, it's what's going on in the league. I was in Nairobi two days ago, and the conversation was about Lamborghini.

You know, it's kind of like, wait, like, because of the recent, you have a lot of people. But I was our conversation online here, right? But it's there, and they can, and that's what they're

all over the world, different places. People are paying the attention to what we talk about,

even as micro down to Lagos. I mean, people are telling you all these households, all they're telling you about things that are going on in Lagos, because they're watching it online and they're seeing it. So a social currency from a continent for Nigeria is

“how our numbers and how we communicate in the digital space. So that's, to me, I think that's why”

it applies in the emerging market. We still have a cultural impact that's taken over the world. Where we dropping them ballers, we not investing in the craft of really going in with our best foot, especially if we manipulate in some of the things happening. But the ones that I actually really doing the work that I doing it, they couldn't through, burning selling out 80,000 or seven arenas. Times is doing, if I wasn't F1, I still might think about that. So somebody that in 2018

was not even known as much, just had to have two records that was going to be doing that on a global scale. That's impact, right? Yeah, I get that. But that, that, culturally impact, that can not be measured. It doesn't show up on the spreadsheet. It doesn't show up on the spreadsheet, but that's I mean, a lot of things on the spreadsheet when you need to develop a market. So the hope is for a lot of these, or for a lot of labels that we don't want to miss the opportunity, or they don't want to

“miss the opportunity of sorting, right? And that's why I think it did, like, finesse what happened.”

Yeah, right? Because it happened off the heels of multiple artists, hitting certain, and like, oh, we don't want to miss this. So we're going to invest. But I think that's slowing down a little bit that like I said right now, because again, because it was going on, we hadn't had it, we haven't had

a major hit, a new hit. Yeah, yeah. That has always hit my alarm bells ringing. I'm just screaming

this for the last two years. Yeah, I've been watching you up under the park, well, I'm gonna see that the pariah. Every people are saying, oh my God, you're pointing out the obvious. Yeah. Well, it's the obvious. Yeah. We, I forbid, as a culture. I tracked that funding because we could do a set in the, yeah, we're producing those records and we could guarantee global optic. Yeah. And for the last two years, this is 2025. For the last two years, we haven't really

seen that channel produce a lot more. Yeah. Did we sell it during? Well, that's it. And that's a difficult one to say, because some people sold a gene. Yeah. And some people called, and also they went and got the checks and do what they need to do. Well, so I'm a true believer that we have an abundance of talents in Nigeria. Yeah. Right, across Africa, beyond just

Nigeria, because I meet some incredible artists. And when I meet them, I'm like, God,

like, like, God didn't make no mistakes about this. Like, there's, there's something credible telling. I mean, there's one that we working with now in Hobbraia, that when I,

“when I think about it, I just think about how dedicated he, this person is to making music”

every day, 5 AM, 6 AM in the morning, he's practicing, he's going through it. Like, he's not making any money. I'm doing it, but he's dedicated to it. Um, I believe that that's that's a real, that's not a, that's not a lie. That's a real, talented person. And it's only a amount of time that that truth crush the ground rise. Right. Um, but I think what's sad is when people cheat the system when they cheat the system and they get all the way there. And they can't,

they can't, they can't back it up. Because we have, other artists have to suffer for that, because they might not get a chance, because somebody else has gone in. It's, uh, what's a mess it up. Sorry. We have the space where we have been, we've been spoiled for so long. We've somehow, we've kept, we kept the train going for so long. And now,

how do we chat the part where, because the original idea for Afro-Bits to the world? And why I

think a lot of the boots that were played, yeah, came on the ground here was because it's like, we took, as a culture, and this is me, my finance head going up and down. We took a loan, and our collateral was a lot more people can come through and a lot more people want to hear

“music. Yeah. And not producing a global hit for two years. How is that into question?”

It does. And, and I'm here thinking, how can we go back to that time? How can we unlock what we had when we were creating those records? And when we're having the motion that we had on that level. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the short answer is we need to get back to creating music at a high level. Yeah. And not even, not same music at a high level, because we went back then music wasn't a high level, but we was at least, we was being true. Wasn't about,

oh, if I put this out, my tomorrow is going to be on the top 10. Yeah. But I'm going to put this out. I'm going to get it to the clubs. I'm going to see what the people like when the people

“like it, it's, we know it's going to go into this place. And that's how, like, if you see,”

we go back to, I love our market is you have to be high. If your record wasn't high, you're not getting that, that deal, right? Because people were really genuinely listening to that. And we was fans of the music. True. Right. I think we've lost the, we've lost the true fandom of music a little bit. I don't know if you, if you can feel that, I agree. Yeah. We've lost the fandom of like just true people, really coming in and actually being fans of music. Because again,

we compete with false pretence a lot of times. Right. And so almost like people don't even care anymore. They just, they just go on. Yeah. About they dig. But I think that we need to get back to making

“sure like people feel something with the music. Right. You need to get to that point again.”

And how about the issue of numbers? We have too many people that we can put through the system. The ongoing through the system, the official system that we can have. When you look at it,

everyone says there's a gap in the market. Yeah. So 100 million people over 50% of them are young people.

Yeah. 70, I think like 70%. 70%. We have with the youngest continent first. Yeah. And I market, I think, less than, more than 75% of our populations on the 25. Imagine. So on the 25. I study other cultures who have other cultures that have broken through the system and broken them the more than have sustained it. Yeah. I look at the Latino guys. They've done it. The K-pop guys have done it. They've done it to the point where they are competing actually with

the legacy artists. Legacy American artists. Yeah. We've seen them. The global North, they've dominated. We've seen them do wonders in the global South as K-pop artists. And what does people have is that, slightly the Latinos and the Koreans, what they have is they come to the table with numbers. Yeah. And paying numbers too. Right? Because if you think about the Latin market, they've almost made, they've made blocks of Latin music. Right? So you have

the US block, which is all the Latinos, Spanish-speaking people in the US essentially make a one block. Then you have from Colombia, Central America, those regions that are that one block. You have the Argentina, you have Spain, you have another, but they combine that block and they just mix a strong number. One of the artists that we distribute is music is Bad Bunny. And I've been amazed by the numbers. Hey guys, guys, this should be a bad Bunny.

You distribute Bad Bunny's music. And I was looking at the numbers and he dropped a project

January 5th. And I looked at his number like January 15th. And he was about to 1.8 billion streams

under 10 days. I was amazed at that. Right? Like the next week he was number one in France.

And the album is literally a high-mish to Puerto Rico. If you go to listen to that project,

it's pain-harmish to Puerto Rico. That's literally a project. And he did a resonance to something that he imported to Rico for 20-something days. It sold out on the 24 hours. He's he's figured out how to make a cultural impact with what he's doing. They move as a block. They

“made enough impact. He's arguably the biggest artist in the world. Have you think about it?”

Even bigger than Drake? Yeah, 20-20. I think 20-30 and then he was the most streamer. Yeah, 20-30, 30 going to 20-30. Yeah, and he's still relatively independent. There's no major

besides distribution. There's nobody really backing him. That's a huge accomplishment.

We was talking about the Latin block. And I think that that's to the success of that. And I think we as an English-speaking African country can do that. Because there's a lot of us in diaspora all over from Brazil to the Caribbean, to the US, to the UK, all over the world. We can get those blocks together. And we can actually do that. But it starts with the music. You can't. There's no Latin person. I can listen to Bad Bunny's project and say that. This is horrible.

Sure. Yeah, you don't get to a lot of that. Maybe they're patting the numbers.

I don't know if you're doing it on that side. But I can tell you that I listen to it. I'm not even

I don't even understand what it's saying because I was wondering what was- Yeah, why is it such an effect? Why does it have such an effect? Right. And then I did a little bit more research and it's trying to understand the story that he was telling, "Oh, this is super, super intentional." Everything was intentional about the project. From the cover art to the rollout, to even even even doing the residency. I think we need to get back to that core of

actually making music at that high level. But I came up in an industry where we had artists that could go for like 34 years on singles. Yeah, we were a single market for a while. I've obviously the world happened all of the contracts came in and mandated albums. Now we are running and we don't have an album market. We have an album Monday to market.

“That's how I see it. Because I don't want to think- I don't think we have an album”

Monday to market. I think we just- we have a constant need to stay relevant and stay on top. Right. And it's the- I'm just- we must drop like three months. They'll forget three months. So they constantly dropping and a lot of times they're not taking the time to make good music. They're just dropping. They're dropping. Because part of part of the- the algorithms that helps all that helps stream and of sorts is you constantly keep dropping. Even if they're not

listening to the whole thing, you're still picking up numbers. Yeah. So some people use that strategy. You already constantly keep dropping. Keep dropping. Keep dropping. Keep dropping. Right. I don't- I don't- I don't think music should be consumed like that. And this- and this is not a- this is not a law. This is my own personal opinion. I think artists need time to live and experience to be able to tell the story.

Because I think at best an artist's true-est position is to tell stories. Yeah. Right. True. Right. And- and across the board I think from shave vibes to the top or the top or either way you want to own where to put it. It's all about storytelling. Right. Yeah. And that's what connects. That's what makes us connect. That's what's make us feel something. Is that- that story has been told. Sure. And to build to tell real stories,

you have to have a level of experience. Yeah. You have to have that level of experience. You have to

“something you have to live through certain things. Right. So I think that takes time to”

you reflect the talk and- and then be able to come back in. It's okay. Let me pen this down and really make this special. And in your position as director of West Africa,

knee for your name. It's- it's- it's on the lines your name. Yeah. And in your- in your position,

what do you think? How do you- how do you honor this industry in your position? How- how do you-

“the things you want to see, the things that are ideal, how do you- how do you live it in the space?”

Um, man. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I try to wake up every day and try to answer in real time. Um, I think- so with me, when I do it, when I'm working with the artists, I tell them, I tell them a few things. I say, look, in doing this deal, I'm not doing this deal based on money, right? Um, I'm doing this deal because one, we like the music, right? That's

why we hear. But most importantly, I want to make sure that we like each other. And we have to have

a sort of a relationship for us to be able to really build something that's strong because I'm going to put my all into making sure that we get this right. And I want to make sure that on the other side, you're going to do the same thing, right? So for me, the way I honor the industry is really putting my best in everything that I do with the artists and making sure that I don't sell us short. When I say us, I'm talking about other Africans, Nigerians, and that I don't sell us short.

Right? When I get into this, and I'm going to tell you, okay, here's the deal,

structure house it is. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to try to- I'm going to be as transparent

with you, right? Yeah. On the deal. So that way, you know what you're getting into. We know what we're getting into. It's an agreement that we both get into. So and we understand that, right? And I try not to hide anything from anybody. Yeah. Unless, let's just be real and do it and be fair.

“That's the only way I can do it. That's what I've done from trace to now is just try to be”

to do it integrity. That's the only way I feel like I can honor the industry. I understand you. One of the things that's, one of the reasons why we were cool with each other, like we connect them in integrity. Yeah. I don't know what to say. Well, integrity, everything. Actually, in the in a space where it's solid lock in them. Yeah. I think as more importantly, I think that as a nation, there's a decay in moral, moral capacity, as a decay. If you think about it,

right? And to go back to the Lambo conversation just a little bit on that. The idea of we don't think about and across the board, I'm not just saying for women or I'm saying across the board, we don't even think about what a person is done to earn what they've done. The only thing we look at is the end results. There's no way in the world that that is the case a lot of times. Right? You look at the end results. Somebody comes in and says they have a Lambo guinea.

Okay, what did you do to get it? Well, work. That's almost a $400,000 car. Well, work in this Nigerian have you done to earn $400,000? Right? Yes, sure. As anybody stopped and said, hey, like some people don't make that in their lifetime. Right? And then when you get things, you start to think that it's that easy for these things to happen.

“Again, morality starts to decay a little by a little. Right? And I think in and I'm not saying that's a woman thing, right?”

I think across the board, because there's some people that will pull up in certain places. And you still wondering, how would you buy 40 bottles of champagne? Right? Now, costs went what? One M each or whatever it is costs in the club. And me, Georgetown, can you really drink that much? And what did you take to make that money? Right? And I think that one of my golden rules, respect the man's work or person's work before you respect the person's money.

I think that should be the golden rule for everybody. Like, we just don't respect money, because that's not, that's a, that's a, that's a tradable thing is like, what, what have you done? What have you contributed to get this done? Not, you understand? Yeah, and extrapolating that into the industry

Like, for far artists? Yeah, when you extrapolate that into the music business. Yes, the same thing is like, again, what have you done? Right? People can look at burners and say, oh, he's, and I hate to keep using burners example in this situation. But he's, there was a show that he did. I think he collected a million

“dollars a show for the show. Yeah. And but nobody will remember that from 2012 or 2013.”

He's been working and he's been building and getting better and better and better. Right? And you can, you can track it. You can track for everybody. You can track for David, too. Right? He's, he's, he's worked. He's put, like, David can perform two hours of hits. True. Yeah. Right? So you can, no matter what anybody says, he comes from or whatever,

you cannot take that away from him. True. Right? So you always have to respect that.

Gotless whatever it is. Right? What a lot of people don't, and I think, and especially in this social media era, people think it's easy. People think this music thing is actually easy also. And when you start to couple it up with the manipulation of everything, the psychology starts to become, oh, we can do this. We can make this happen. Right? And again, it's going back to anything. And I respect in the order of how the rules of

money a lot of time. And when you joined the music industry, I mean, when you did the switch from trace to Sony. What was your, what was your aim then? And now that you've your wet behind the year, you're way too wet behind the years. Now that you're wet behind the years, how is that all that initial perception of the space and going forward? How it doesn't

“influence how you now do business? Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing I'll say is that when I first”

came into the orchard, one of the things that I really wanted to work with artists, like, I'm

a lifelong artist friend or artist first thinker, like I always think about supporting artists.

I think I'm a lifelong server for the creative industry. Right? I always wanted to just help artists and have creative kind of become self-actualized. Yes, self-actualized. But now the biggest thing for me is just I really just genuinely want to help good people. Right? That's like my true attitude because you found this. You found this. You found this subset. Yeah, that's not all 90s. No, 90s. No, 90s people are good people. Right? So for me, I just want to help good people. And that's not to say

that I don't understand what what space I'm in and sometimes music you tend to also do work with bad people. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's a space that's my answer for about this. Yes, there's a bunch of craziness going on here. But where my where what drives my own passion is good people, I want to see

them wait. Okay. I've never had that set before. I want to see good. I really within the context

of the music. Yeah. People want to make money. Yeah, of course. Of course we want to, I mean, of course we want to make, but I think money is money is one thing that a lot of times people trade the character from money. Right? But if you think about it, it's an infinite number. Sure. You think it's an infinite number. Sure. You constantly going to be, you can't get all the money. You can't get all the money in the world. You can get enough money and you can get enough money to

to build a house, do what you're probably going to want more. Right? Yeah. All these people they buy what 20 cars and they want going to probably buy another one. Sure. Soon. Right? So

“there's an infinite thing. And at a point you have to have a purpose. So when I was talking about”

my purpose is just that's the person. That's not saying I want to be broke. Of course I'm going to, I'm going to make sure I work enough to get the things that I want out of life. Right?

reached the point. Right? That's something, that's a reward or so. But that's not why you're there. Right? And even to make music, I don't think that music is one of those things. That is a tool.

If you think about it, like how powerful it is, it's a tool to to make people feel something,

to like to connect. It's to really help some people here, like some people listen to some

“records in, like it helps them improve the quality of the system. Yeah. And I think it's a”

super super important. So not lose that spot. Not to lose that spot. And I'm not saying everything has to be serious because I enjoy sometimes. I just want to be, I want to be in the club. And whatever record that we listen to there, there's still, there's a field that you get from listening to that and you get it. Right? Yeah. But that's, again, it's go that way to do that with intention.

Even if you're going to do it, do it with intention. Just before we go, are you, are you still

bullish on the affo bits to the world promise? Um, okay. I want to say Afro Beach to the world. I'm during music. I'm saying African music. And so I'm bullish on, on African artists to the world.

“I think that we are going to start to define African artists more genre specific. We're going”

to start to get artists truly step outside of being boxed into. They have to make it through Afro Pop. Afro. They're going to just do what they want to do. How they want to do it. And I think it's going to cut through eventually. Um, I think we're going to, I think we're going to hit a small decline. Um, but what's going to come after that? This isn't the decline. I think we, we're going through it a little bit. But I think it's probably might go a little bit deeper. Right? But I think

what's going to come out of that is going to be stronger. Right? Um, because one thing I do know that we very resilient people, like Nigerians, I probably the most resilient people that I've ever met in this world, you think about all the shit that we go through. Yeah. In the world. So I don't think

“that you can count or say, oh Afro Beach to the world is over. Right? Yeah. I think it's going to go”

down, but then it's going to be a new, new era, new energy, new things. I think there's some kids that I'm listening to now. Like, man, they're going to be special, Victorian. I think Victorian is going to be special. I think Rema is going to be special. Um, I think there's a lot of people that I'm listening to. Um, that I say, oh, man, they, they come in and they're going to do something

amazing. They're going to, they're going to shift the narrative. How we look at Africans and how

we look at Nigerians, how we listen to how we think about this music thing. And I think they push an envelope to be better. Um, we're going to say a lot more of that. Um, and we're going to find more individual artists that might be a jazz artist. It might not even be Afro, it might be a complete jazz artist. It might be a gospel. It might be something different that we see as ships the narrative for what we do. Okay. Yeah. Well, for me, I'm just, I follow the data. Yeah. And

what are you optimistic? Am I optimistic? I used to be. Um, so what is it now? What is it now? Now, I used to be, I used to think the promise of Afro bits to the world was where we get to a point where we're so plugged in. And yeah, we're so plugged into the point where I'm a kid in, let me call this long hair and machine, for example, can drop a record and hit the billboard from machine. That's still possible. It used to be, it's much, it's much harder to cut through

what it's still possible. If that kid is genuinely intentionally focused on, it's crap, and to get there. Right. Um, I think it's still possible. Right. You think about it? Yeah. But it's, it's hard to be optimistic here. Yeah. I think what's, what's hard is, I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of phonies. Yeah. That are in space. When I say phonies, not that they're not talented or anything like that, but the malipination and the trickery and how we've been fooled is much. Right.

difficult to see the boojoo commander on the boats and in, and what was it, what was it? Yeah,

“it was in the canoe canoe. What was that place? Michael Cole? Michael Cole. Yeah, it was pulling”

off of my mind. Yeah. Right. But you can hear it's gift then. Right. Um, they're still kids like that

out there. They're still people that I'm going to cut through that we just need to make sure that

we don't sell them short because then they just have to keep working and don't get then just think,

“oh, if this guy does this, it's going to go don't worry. I just need to, I mean, you have to keep”

working and we just need to keep telling stories and making sure we keep the intention of real. Because we still have hardship, we still have a bunch of stuff going on. And ideally, an artist true is the form is to represent what society is today to be the mirror to what society is today. Right. As long as we have what's going on and everything is, we need artists to reflect that.

“Okay. I want to believe you. And I think it was after that, it was after that. It's hard.”

It's hard to hold onto optimism seeing what's happening. Yeah. Well, I think this is a good, this is a good point to put the pin in. Yeah. So thank you so much. Thank you. This was not easy, but I'm grateful that you did this. Oh, I love it. Thank you. Thank you. [Music]