It is no longer news that Afrobeats is making inroads into the world. Nigerian music stars, Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Yemi Alade, Adekunle Gold, Tiwa Savage, have succeeded in taking their sounds to different parts of the world, performing on global stages, serenading fans with the best melodies from Nigeria.
Streaming platforms like Deezer, Spotify and Apple have played a great role in making Afrobeats available across the world. These global streaming services have been able to serve as a bridge that connects Afrobeats to the world. Netflix launched its services in Africa in 2016. In September 2018, Netflix acquired its first original film from Nollywood, Lionheart. Netflix and Amazon Prime over the last two years have been able to stream Nollywood movies on their platform, making it possible for Nollywood movies to reach more audiences.
According to the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), the number of internet subscribers rose by 5 percent from 116.31 million active internet lines in March 2019 to 122.7 million by July 2019. Despite having an internet subscriber base that is more than 120 million, Nigeria is not among the top 50 contributors to Netflix subscribers base. South African is the only African country on the list, with about 152,588 subscribers. South Africa is number 41 on the list, while Luxemburg came in at number 50th with 52,151 subscribers. This shows that Nigeria has less than 50,000 Netflix subscribers.
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IFPI, the organization that represents the recorded music industry worldwide, on the 24th September, released the 2019 music listening report, which examines how music consumers aged 16 – 64 engage with recorded music across 21 countries. Nigeria failed to make the list, despite the growing demand for Afrobeats and Nollywood movies on different streaming services across the world.
With the advent of the internet, Nigerians started downloading songs from dodgy sites that made music freely available for them. This still happens till today. Some get the music they listen to from “boys” at Computer Village, Onitsha Market, Alaba, etc. They pay these guys as low as 1 dollar (360) naira to copy illegally downloaded music to their phones or tablets. While others receive music through “Xender or Bluetooth.” This culture of downloading music illegally from dodgy sites still exists until today.
According to Nigerian rapper and actor IllBliss, “a lot of music fans in Nigeria don’t know how to buy music from Apple Music or Spotify. They see these streaming platforms as long things. They would rather go and download music and movies from dodgy websites that put out our music and movies for free. This affects the revenue of artists and creatives in Nigeria.”
But the major reason why streaming is not a norm in Nigeria is that Nigerians are poor. As internet penetration increases, the number of poor people in Nigeria is growing at an alarming rate. According to the world poverty clock, Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world.
Findings from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2019 global multidimensional poverty index also state that slightly over 98 million Nigerians are living in multidimensional poverty. Consumers in Nigeria don’t have enough purchasing power to pay streaming services to consume music and movies legally. So they prioritize their spending.
According to SBM Intelligence, Nigerians currently spend between 56 percent and 60 percent of their income on food on average. The minimum wage in Nigeria is less than ($60) per month. It is easy to berate fans for not streaming music or movies, but streaming music and movies is a luxury many Nigerians cannot afford because they are poor and don’t have the money needed to stream.
There is a need to get more Nigerians to stream our music and movies that are crossing borders. Artists and creatives working in the movie and music industry have a responsibility to educate their fans and nudge them to get music and movies from the right streaming platforms to increase their reach and grow the audience of people consuming music and movies on licensed trackable streaming services in Nigeria.
Written by – Ugochukwu Ikeakor.
