Streaming in Afrobeats: If we depend on home, we will die

In 2015, Boomplay came to Nigeria with Tecno. They started an Africa focused media streaming and download service that was available to Android users. Apple Music launched globally around the same time, and four years later, Apple Music and Spotify launched in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, giving Afrobeats and African artists a better platform to showcase themselves to the world.

Since then, artists have risen on the platforms, turning to superstars and reaching global platforms and audiences because of their exploits on these platforms. Reaching milestones on these platforms have become the new standard for success in the Nigerian music space. A number one position on Apple Music meant more than a hit single on the streets.

The number of listeners in the country that use these platforms are very little compared to the population of the country. A country of 200 million people has about 500 thousand paying subscribers for Apple Music, and about 3 million on Spotify. It means not of to 10% of the population are paying subscribers on streaming platforms. In other words, it means that the people of Nigeria can not sustain Afrobeats. 

This simple statement is the reason for the globalization of the sound. Not totally because of the sheer hunger and desire of the artists to conquer the world. It’s why every major act or player in the music space is signed to a foreign label. Every single one of them. The money needed to push the sound and fund the lifestyle of the superstars simply can not come from home. Spotify says that it paid out more than 25bn naira ($16.8m at current exchange rates) for music by Nigerian artists in 2023.

I personally do not see the local industry giving the artists 16.8 million dollars. I do not see the listeners generating 5 million dollars as revenue. The Nigerian record for most daily streams is 13.49 million. Spotify pays roughly $0.0033 per stream. That means Nigerian music listeners on Spotify generated $44,517 on its highest day of streaming. Converted to naira using 1635 as the exchange value, we generated 60.7 million Naira in a day in our highest streaming day, ever. To share among over 10,000 artists that’d contribute to that 13.97 million streams. 

Apple Music globally has about 93 million subscribers. Spotify has 246 million subscribers. In Nigeria, they have 3 million. When our artists seek the validation of the whites, it’s because the money is there. The shows are there. Touring is there. Investment and advances are there. All we have is a strong social media presence that we have failed to convert to active paying listeners. There’s not anyone to blame for this in particular though, the nation is poor. 

We’ve so much glamorized and up holded the Apple Music number 1 position screenshot. You see artists screenshot their songs and post with the caption “I have the biggest song in the country”. No you do not, sir. You have the biggest song on a streaming platform that has about 500 thousand users. The country has about 200 million people. Half of these people access music by what’s played on the streets and in the nightlife space. We’ve been misled. Dangerously. We’re living by an unsustainable pattern. What happens when everyone is big enough to have 500k listeners, and can have a shot at the number one slot? 

Recently, the debate around Apple Music and Spotify has heightened. People argue which is the better streaming service. People argue which has a better interface. Everyone’s eager to share their Spotify wrapped and Apple Music replay list. Artists post their Spotify backend stats at the end of the year and we use this to rank them. My message to everyone is that we are focusing on the wrong things. We are not propelling our conversations in the right direction. 

We are small. We are really small. We almost do not matter in the grand scheme of things. Tems’s manager in a response to Nigerians trolling his Artist said on X “Please understand. We are not here to entertain you, you just happen to be entertained. With or without your opinions, you will sit down and  watch what happens when a perfect God uses imperfect humans.” He’s not wrong. Tems needed us to get discovered, then she didn’t. The world accepted her and did so like she was one of theirs, so she has no reason to pay homage to home.

We berate artists for switching up their sound to suit a more international audience. It’s easy to understand where they’re coming from. You will not feed them. We can not, and we’re also very toxic as consumers to not appreciate, so they’ll turn elsewhere. They’d westernize the sound. They’ll come home once a year because home can no longer fund or feed the young boy’s dream. They’ll branch out and seek the white man’s validation because the validation comes with a whole lot more than home has to offer. They’ll go out into the wild and hustle, because if they depend on home for food, they’ll die. 

Related Topics

• Afrobeats
• music