RECORD LABELS: A DYING BREED

The music business as we know it has undergone so many significant changes through the years. Once upon a time, upcoming artists dreamt of the day they would cross paths with an influential A&R (Artist and repertoire)  executive who will sign them to whatever record company, which will serve as the machine to make those dreams come true. In this present day, a lot of artistes seem to be running the opposite direction. Most artistes today prefer to partner with a hard working manager or assemble an efficient team,finance their careers and reap all benefits, ALL!!! To worsen issues, record companies in a fight to survive efficiently, now issue mostly if not only 360 deals. A 360 deal gives the record company a share of any revenue generated by the artist, from bookings to endorsements, literarily the full circle. No artist wants to feel enslaved, let alone have hands in all aspects of their pocket. But one cant help but ponder,all the revenue being generated is due to recourses spent by the record company no?

The music business is generally less capital intensive today, with the internet and new technology systems, marketing, promoting and branding are seemingly easier. We’ve seen living examples home and abroad in which artistes have built empires from the internet, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Ajebutter 22, Odd Future, BOJ, A$AP MOB and many more. Today an artist can shoot a low budget video on a top notch camera, promote it efficiently on blogs and social media platforms and it garners buzz if appealing enough. The internet to a large extent has single handedly changed the music industry. A&R’s are hardly even looking for talent on the streets or in the bar these days. Their interest tends more to be engaged by huge statistics online, it serves as an indication of how viable the venture could be. Majority of the artistes that received highly publicised record deals recently were already stars with teeming fans on the internet and were heading for stardom with or without the support of a label, for instance A$AP Rocky last year signed a deal worth $3million with RCA,which also came with a label deal, meaning they provided infrastructure for any members of his posse that was deemed ready for the mainstream. That is a good deal as emphasized by A$AP Ferg’s modest success last year. In Odd Future’s case, Tyler the Creator insisted on staying independent even with the burden of promoting other members of the team. It’s no secret that the Odd Future brand and members are incredibly well off if compared to the A$AP Mob but aren’t necessarily as mainstream. What they sacrifice for in reach, they gain in wealth.

I have worked at a record label, and sometimes I couldn’t help but think “What are we really doing that these artists cant do for themselves with their managers?”. In  Nigeria, record labels are even more irrelevant, with  the cycle of news of separations. Local artistes are fast smelling the coffee. What goes on here is not a music industry, but more of  a music hustle. Half of these record labels have no functioning office or staff, no A&R, talent developers. Nothing!!! Most of them pitch their tents at the home of the owner, most likely equipped with a studio. You have the financier who more times than not knows little or nothing of the inner workings of the industry, the artist and a manager. With the skeletal framework, it’s no surprise that the relationships tend to sour. Nigeria is full of independent artist who  name imaginary companies just to fulfil all righteousness.

A few record labels in the Nigerian Music industry are working hard to defeat the present status quo. Examples being Aristokrat Records, EME and Chocolate City. Rumours began swirling last year about a bunch of record labels coming together to form a super label which I viewed as a welcome development, but as at now I can’t say how substantial that information was. For record labels to ever be relevant in Nigeria, talent has to be duly rewarded. At the Social Media Week, Osi Suave of the Beat99.9 fm asked  a very silly question. In his words “If I’m running a business,buying diesel for generators and paying 24/7 security for my radio station, where is the money to pay royalties? ” to which Efe Omorogbe, CEO Now Musik gave a fantastic answer,  “Okay! so take your gateman and generator and play them on radio”. Nigeria is not showing any signs of duly rewarding intellectual property anytime soon. Music business is big business,way bigger than people realize. If this much yearned structure we all crave is introduced, it must be done as close to perfectly as possible. Revenue from bookings is not enough to fund a company as a well oiled machine.