Last week, Universal Music Group announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Mavin Records, subject to regulatory approval in a deal to be finalized by Q3 of 2024. Financial details were not included in the statement, and neither was a breakdown of the company’s new ownership structure that would reveal just how much stake UMG had acquired. While some of this information is expected to surface in the future, the crux of the acquisition is already clear. Universal Music Group, one of the big three record labels (or the Majors), is buying into Nigerian music’s market share by purchasing its biggest record label. It is a landmark deal that comes with plenty of guaranteed upside for Mavin, but not without the danger of a possible loss of its identity.
In 2019, Mavin Records, seven years into its existence, needed new wind in the sails to scale its operations to match African music’s expanding reach. At the time, Universal Music Group, Warner, and Sony Music were anchoring their ships in Afrobeats’ favorable waters, getting set to export its biggest stars to the world. Mavin Records CEO Don Jazzy and COO, Tega Oghenejobo wanted their team to compete in the big leagues. “The investors came in right on time because immediately after that then the entire Universal, Warner, Atlantic [major labels] flooded the market, and it would have been chaotic if I didn’t have enough dollars”, Don Jazzy said in an interview in 2022. The investor he refers to is Kupanda Holdings, a joint venture between Kupanda Capital and TPG Growth, venture capitalist firms known for investing in and accelerating growth in promising businesses.
At the time of that investment, Mavin was home to Korede Bello, Di’ja, D’Prince, and Johnny Drille, artists with great followership and airplay in Nigeria, but yet to launch to international fame. Mavin’s best bet for this, the alluring Tiwa Savage, left the label to join Universal Music in the following months. Other record labels were plotting even bigger incursions into the Nigerian market—Warner Music formed a Joint Venture with Chocolate City later in 2019, while EMPIRE forged a similar partnership with YBNL the following year. Mavin’s new cash injection allowed it to be competitive without needing to cede or share creative control with a major.
Don Jazzy and Mavin made good use of these added resources. Shortly after, they minted a new batch of young artists, the very first graduates of the Mavin Academy. Crayon made ripples in Nigeria with his debut EP Cray Cray, while Rema’s entry was on a much bigger scale, with his eponymous EP powered by Dumebi’s global success. Next to be introduced was Ayra Starr in 2021, and her sensational double salvo of Ayra Starr EP and the 19 And Dangerous album proved she was quite the complete package and the missing piece for Mavin and indeed the industry at large—the graceful singer, the vivacious performer, the glamorous fashion icon and the Gen Z female popstar all in one. Rema and Ayra Starr represent the return on the investment Mavin received three years ago, and in many ways they are the reason this deal exists today.
While UMG’s press statement lists the full repertoire of Mavin’s roster as assets, it only goes into detail to describe Rema and Ayra Starr’s feats in the last few years: Calm Down peaking at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, Ayra Starr’s Grammy nomination with Rush and its record-breaking video. The rest of the label, except older niche artists in slick rapper Ladipoe and country singer Johnny Drille, constitutes a contingent of stars for the future—Crayon, Boy Spyce, Magixx, Bayanni and, Lifesize Teddy—all of whom, having graduated from Mavin’s famed academy, look to establish themselves as stars in their rights. While they are a promising group on their own, their value is ultimately validated by the duo of Ayra Starr and Rema, who, as alumni, demonstrate the ability of Don Jazzy and his team to mentor young talent to global stardom. To pull off one-off global hits is becoming more and more possible with today’s world of viral music, but in this duo, Don Jazzy has created not just hit singles but stars. In the past week, they have both been in the public eye displaying just that. Rema took the stage at the 2024 BRIT awards, delivering a rendition of Calm Down in all of the superstar swagger that he has now come to embody, while the delectable Ayra Starr turned heads and was a subject of conversation at the Paris Fashion Week.
Every move these stars make: the music they release, their stage presence, even Rema’s signature legwork moves and, Ayra’s proprietary mini-skirt is an advertisement of Mavin’s well-rounded artist development and scouting prowess, exactly what Universal is spending big money trying to buy into. In turn, Mavin gets the ability to once more scale up their operation. Kupanda Holdings granted access to much-needed capital, but not much by way of the expertise of professionals versed in global music. Universal Music Group, a major player in the game for decades, should provide both. Mavin has a clearer path for Ayra and Rema to grow into global powerhouses, and the capacity to attempt to reenact their journeys with the rest of their roster.
But in making the decision, Don Jazzy must have thought beyond just these potential gains. Selling a majority stake to Universal Music means granting them the ability to direct the company. The global giant maintains that it will be leaving Mavin’s team with “autonomy over its strategy and future talent development”, and while those are comforting words, legal power to make decisions that guide a company’s direction most often rests with the majority shareholder and the board, and this control is why a company will seek to make a majority investment in the first place. Don Jazzy’s new structure therefore comes with a cloud of uncertainty: Nigeria’s biggest label is effectively in the hands of one of the majors, and while he remains the CEO, he now reports to a larger group whose best interests might not necessarily be the same as his.
It also means that when UMG brings its large catalog of music to any negotiating table, like in its recent feud with TikTok, the Mavin acts on their roster, for better or worse, may get dragged into new arrangements. The question of authenticity also remains. We have thankfully pulled away from the dark days when it was thought that the best pathway to foreign markets was to ape their music style, but it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that a major label will influence its subsidiary to fine-tune its music to better serve a global market, or control its strategy to favour profit making over artistic expression. Universal’s desire to make its Mavin as profitable as it can be will mean the very best attention, financially and otherwise, will be showered on it, what remains to be seen is if Nigeria’s biggest music label will be able to maintain its identity under a new home.