Universal Music Group announced last week that it would purchase a majority stake in Mavin Global, the record label behind the viral hit “Calm Down” by Nigerian artist Rema.
Nigerian and South African musical genres—Afrobeats and Amapiano—have recently gained an international fanbase, and the investment is designed to capitalize on that rise. Rema’s track is the most successful song of all time by an African artist both in numbers of plays and views, having racked up more than 1 billion streams on Spotify, becoming the most watched music video by an African artist on YouTube, and reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 100 last year for a record 57 weeks.
Afrobeats songs were streamed more than 13 billion times on Spotify in 2022, a nearly 500 percent increase from 2017. Mavin is home to some of Nigeria’s biggest music stars, including Beninese-born Nigerian singer Ayra Starr, Ladipoe, Crayon, and Rema. Universal has said that the operation of Lagos-based Mavin will remain unchanged following its investment. CEO Don Jazzy—who founded Mavin in 2012—and Chief Operating Officer Tega Oghenejobo will continue to run the label. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2024, pending regulatory approval.
Africa has the world’s fastest-growing music market, but the potential of the continent’s creative export is still hugely undervalued. A lack of internet connection has impeded the growth of the creative economy. About 600 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa alone, or 4 in 10, lack electricity. (The editing of this column was interrupted by power outages in Lagos.)
Although slow to acknowledge the rise of African music, the support of U.S. firms could cement the African music industry’s global dominance for years to come. Last month, “Water,” a song by South African star Tyla, won a new Grammy Awards category introduced for the best African music performance. Nigerian singer Burna Boy became the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium last summer when he played New York’s Citi Field.
Sony and Warner Music have set up shop in Nigeria and South Africa—signing up Tyla, Burna Boy, and fellow Nigerian star Davido. Warner Music in 2022 acquired Africori, one of Africa’s leading digital music distributors, whose clients include South Africa’s Master KG, the artist behind 2020 global hit “Jerusalema.” In August 2023, Gamma, a music label partly backed by Apple, opened its African office in Lagos. “We’re going straight to the source,” Sipho Dlamini, a Gamma executive told the New York Times. Dlamini previously headed Universal’s South African subsidiary.
As Aubrey Hruby wrote in Foreign Policy in September 2020, “After years of trying to sell Western music in Africa, global music labels are now looking to Africa for talent. … [I]n the era of U.S.-Chinese competition, U.S. investment in Africa’s burgeoning creative industries has never been more important.”
Hruby reported that these investments are vital to keep pace with China, which has modified its investments beyond rail and road infrastructure. China is investing in the industries where African markets are headed—online gaming and digital entertainment—mainly by funding internet infrastructure through building fiber optic cables and launching cheaper smartphones and streaming targeted at the African market; somewhere between 50 percent to 70 percent of Africa’s internet networks belong to Huawei.
Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Transsion is Africa’s biggest smartphone seller, which allows it to control the African apps market. Since Transsion’s Boomplay first launched in Nigeria in 2015, it has become Africa’s most popular music streaming app. Interestingly, Boomplay signed an agreement in 2021 with Universal to expand its catalog licensing from seven to 47 African countries.
South Korean companies are also trying to get into the market, and K-pop bands have recreated Afrobeats and Nigerian languages within their music which has been a divisive issue among Nigerian artists. Mavin rejected a buyout bid by Hybe, the company that owns the K-pop label behind the globally popular South Korean band BTS.
Music and film are Nigeria’s biggest export after oil largely due to online streaming platforms, which significantly reduced a piracy problem that had meant music stars earned little or no profit from their songs. Before streaming, music was sold on pirated CDs, and it was difficult—if not impossible—for artists to reach foreign audiences. Royalties earned from streaming platforms such as Boomplay and Spotify allowed for some income.
Only 3 percent of the total funding raised by Nigerian start-ups in 2023 went to entertainment start-ups, despite the creative industry being the second-largest employer after the oil industry. Nigerian lawmakers passed the Copyright Act of 2022 in March last year to better protect musicians although digital piracy persists. In 2019, Abuja introduced a loan scheme called the Creative Industry Financing Initiative, but because it was bogged down by bureaucracy and a severe dollar shortage, not many benefited.
Prosper Africa, a U.S. government initiative to improve commercial trade with Africa, has recently focused on encouraging more U.S. investors into the continent’s creative industry, producing a report on opportunities in the sector. An investment from Washington, D.C.-based investor Kupanda Capital in 2019 helped Mavin boost marketing to global audiences. According to Universal, its acquisition will build on that and allow Mavin to “break more talent globally.”
If the United States is serious about drawing Africans away from China’s and Russia’s spheres of influence, no better path exists than investing in an industry that could employ more than 20 million young Africans annually.
