Interview: Naijatastic’s Tosin Osundolire

This is the posture of Nigeria-based music tech start-up Naijatastic, whose core vision entails creating infrastructure that allows creators including musicians, songwriters, podcasters, music producers and record labels to cultivate fan communities while maintaining the Afro music culture.

Founded in January 2017 and currently accessible to independent music artists across Africa, Naijatastic boasts more than 200 000 active monthly listeners and more than 3 000 registered indie artists. The company, which joins the likes of uDux, and East-Africa-based Mdudo, looking to provide local alternatives to global powerhouses which have swooped into the continent’s music market in recent years.

Naijatastic says it is also enabling talent discovery by offering free music uploads, creative collaborations and more.

Music In Africa spoke to Naijatastic’s Tosin Osundolire about a number of issues, including its strides since launch, grappling with structural trends, and strategies for user growth.

MUSIC IN AFRICA: What are some milestones you have chalked since launching in 2017?

TOSIN OSUNDOLIRE: Since 2017, we have been able to grow in our registered artist user base and in the number of tracks uploaded on our platform by independent artists who trust our platform and services.

Africa is witnessing impressive growth in the streaming space. What unique additions does Naijatastic seek to bring to the market?

We are currently looking at the opportunity of offering free music distribution to major streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube Music, etc. This should be launched very soon and will provide a bigger opportunity for emerging, independent artists in the area of exposure and revenue generation.

A key vision for Naijatastic is to serve as a platform to advance the careers of independent artists. In what ways would you say the platform is ensuring this?

We understood the difficulty for independent artists to pay for music distribution services after spending on music production. We also understood that they still needed funding for the promotion of their released tracks. Moreover, many blogs in Nigeria and other parts of Africa even charge fees before they allow track uploaded onto their platforms, a situation that is burdensome for these artists. Naijatastic caters for independent artists by giving them a solid platform to showcase their craft. This can help them secure sponsorship, attract major record and management deals, as well as serve as an avenue for collaboration with other independent artists.

What adverse structural trends have you noticed in Nigeria and within the African digital music market, and how will your platform change or improve them?

The lack of support for indigenous brands. Many platforms that spring up from the African digital music market shut down after a few years due to lack of direction, lack of support from local artists, and lack of funding. It is important for independent artists to grow their fan base from home, before concentrating on major streaming platforms like Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, etc. – which are heavily dominated by American and European artists anyway – in their quest to conquer the international market. One of the ways an artist can build their career is to start from their home base, and that can be fast-tracked by maximising the potentials that local music entertainment or streaming platforms like Naijatastic have to offer.

What are some of the hurdles you faced getting Naijatastic to market?

One of the hurdles we faced was the emergence of major streaming platforms like Spotify, BoomPlay and Audiomack on the African music streaming market, which slightly affected our growth rate, but we are slowly establishing our relevance in the space regardless of their presence.

Is competition from global DSPs like Apple and Spotify the most significant challenge facing local streaming companies such as yours? If so, how are you surmounting them?

Absolutely, they are a competition. They have the financial power, advanced technical capabilities, and more staff support to push their brand and agenda. Naijatastic is an indigenous platform and this is one of our strengths because some artists love locally developed and focused products. Also, we offer free services in every way that we can, in order to support independent artists in Nigeria and across Africa. We also keep expanding our services over time.

What has been the response from artists mainly since Naijatastic launched, and what specific advantages exist for the entertainment industry and creators who sign on to the platform.

The support has been impressive. Many artists have been able to gain followership and fan base through Naijatastic. Music labels also register on the platform and upload tracks on behalf of their signed artists. Some artists have utilised the private messaging system to connect with other artists and collaborate in the studio. We promote these artists on our social media accounts sometimes, promote them on our exclusive video show – The Red Carpet, and publish articles featuring artists on our Discover Blog section.

What’s Naijatastic’s vision for the next few years, especially in the area of user growth?

We will keep building awareness for the Naijatastic brand, offer services that benefit independent artists, increase the user base as well as the number of music tracks uploaded by independent artists for our members and visitors’ listening pleasure.