2021 was a banner year for Afrobeats and the African music industry, with numerous chart-topping singles and albums and songs from the continent, particularly Nigeria, breaking streaming records, being nominated for, and winning both local and international awards, most notably the Grammys.
Here we look at 2022, focusing on the Nigerian music industry and projections for the year.
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 impacted a wide range of enterprises and industries, but it aided the expansion of consumption of Nigerian type of sound to a wider audience, thanks to the use of technology, particularly streaming services and social media.
A retrospect of the Nigerian music industry in 2021
Wizkid’s commercial success with “Made in Lagos” spilled over into 2021, setting new records for an afrobeat artiste. The album’s deluxe edition was nominated for a Grammy award alongside other Nigerian singers who topped the global music category, including Burna Boy, who won the category in March of last year.
We’ve seen foreign artistes collaborate with Nigerian artists to create great singles like the essence remix with Justin Beiber, somebody’s son with Brandy, and Peru remix with Ed Sheeran, all of which have done well commercially.
Ckay’s love nwantinti was a major hit, demonstrating the vast market for Afrobeats that has yet to be explored on a global scale. Wizkid’s three-day sellout of London’s O2 Arena demonstrates that the demand for Afrobeats continues to rise.
As global corporations recognize the potential of Africa’s unexplored market, they are forming partnerships with labels, signing musicians, and acquiring distribution firms. Because of the popularity of Nigerian singers, global fashion brands and fintech businesses from outside are now attempting to accelerate adoption forward by striking large endorsement deals.
The Afrobeats sound and the South African Amapiano have been at the apex of musical entertainment attention and success in Africa and the world is now listening to it. The Nigerian music industry is shaping up against a healthy outlook for music sales globally.
Outlook for 2022
Collaborations on a global scale: Following the success of collaborations like the Essence remix with Justin Beiber and the Peru remix with Ed Sheeran last year, we can expect more international artistes to explore collaborative projects with Nigerian musicians this year. Nigerian artistes will have a greater presence on music charts as a result of this.
Local expansion moves by global companies:
Last year, major music organizations such as Warner Music Group, Empire, and Fireboy DML signed Ckay, Basket Mouth, and Fireboy DML. Warner Music Group purchased a majority stake in Africori, in a move that could position Warner as Africa’s top music distributor. More local expansions will happen this year allowing Africans, especially Nigerian musicians to gain access to the global music market and achieve success.
More revenue on international performances:
International concerts and music festivals will produce more revenue for the Nigerian music business than ever before. This means that the number of local artistes traveling will increase. An example of such an event is Burna Boy who will be the first African singer to perform at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2022.
Because New York is the world’s media and brand capital, this event is demonstrating to the rest of the world that African music is here, that we have a vast audience, and that doing business with Africa is essential if you want to make an impact on future generations.
Aforbeats soundtrack features on Hollywood and copyright licensing:
The Netflix movie, ‘the harder they fall’ was one of the two biggest Netflix movies of 2021. In the movie, the late Fela Kuti sound was heard in the background playing. Coming to America 2 also featured Davido playing some of his hits in the movie. This seems to be the beginning of such trends as experts predict more blockbuster movies adapting Afrobeat sound to the big screens with examples like Black Panther 2 which has that African feel and is scheduled for release in November 2022.
Dayo Adedeji, a Twitter influencer popularly known as Dynasty, speaking with BusinessDay said, “Recently there seems to be responsiveness infusing afro sounds to movies especially movies that represent black culture, although they forget that the African culture is also part of the black culture and they neglected that for a very long time. We can see that they’ve started appreciating it.”
“In copyright issues,” he continued, “all they have to do is to sign an agreement with music distribution companies. I think they will handle part of the distribution, introducing them to the foreign space too and getting the new Afro sound in their movies in return. In the future, we’ll see that not just brands but movies will be appreciating the African culture more or will be infusing afro sounds more. We’ll see more movie music distribution companies come in,” Adedeji added.
Precious Nwadike, a legal practitioner of data privacy and data protection in an interview with BusinessDay said, “Nigeria is the fulcrum when it comes to African creativity. Recently there have been a lot of collaborations with industries in other continents and in Africa as well. There is going to be a massive increase in the use of copyright licenses in the copyright space for Nigerian music,” she said.
She said proper awareness for artistes should be vital because many of them don’t know these things and they should know the full extent of these creative rights.
“Provided that these movies are using the creative work of these artistes, they are getting copyright-licenses there is no issue,” she concluded.
More global award category recognition/nomination:
Africa is dominating the Grammys’ Global Music category, with Wizkid, Tems, Burna Boy, Femi Kuti, and Made Kuti all receiving nominations. Experts predict that Made Kuti, who creates contemporary Afrobeat music, would be a regular nominee for this category, and that with the growing consumption of Afrobeats in the global market, Afrobeat songs may break into the larger categories, which will be historical.
“It’s a good time to be an African, the ceiling of the format has been breached now, so it’s about time for a lot of people to rush in,” Motolani Alake, a music journalist, said in an interview regarding Grammy nominations.
Read also: 7 ways Nigerian music industry would beat 2021 records
More endorsements by foreign brands:
With brands like Puma and Tommy Hilfiger endorsing Nigerian artistes, we may expect more international partnership arrangements in the future, as these artistes are now considered as untapped brands by other big firms looking to invest in the African market.
Music NFTs and the Metaverse:
On new year day, 2022 Nigerian music artiste, Daniel Benson, popularly known as Buju announced on his Instagram page the launch of the Non-fungible token (NFT) music collection on the metaverse community, a project he named‘ Heads by Buju’.
This is a trend we’ll certainly witness in 2022 if the NFT market reaches its global high, as creative artistes begin to use the platform to generate millions of dollars without the help of music labels or distributors. More NFT collaborations will occur, and more artistes will create and own their own items rather than collaborating with another corporation.
“With this momentum being experienced in the African music community, as well as the increased resources being channeled to the continent in 2022 by various industry players, I don’t see any decline for African music in the near future,” Jason Johnson, a professor at the School of Global Journalism and Communication said in a publication.
“Rather, 2022 promises to be much more exciting and we should prepare to experience the best of times from the African music industry,” he added.
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