Roberto Neri: Africa is an exciting place for music business

Neri’s remarks come at a time of increased attention on the work of recording artists from the continent. All big three record labels – Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – have extended a hand to the African music industry, by signing artists, signing distribution deals or opening offices on the continent. Collaborations between western acts and African ones are also on the upswing.

“There’s a lot of talk about China and India in the business at the moment, but I believe Africa is possibly the most exciting place for the future of the music business,” Neri said.

An upsurge in music publishing and intellectual property protection is also noticeable across the continent. In Liberia, a campaign to educate the populace on intellectual property is set to be carried out. Meanwhile, in March, Nigerian company Replete inked a deal with publishing giant Kobalt Music with promises of a global reach.

"We are committed to ensuring that our music creators’ best interests remain at the forefront," said Amy Oraefo, CEO of Replete. "Our partnership with Kobalt will help take our creators’ content to the ears of the world so all can experience the vast amount of talent throughout the continent of Africa."

Unfortunately, it is not all well. Only recently, Nigeria’s major collecting organisation, the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), had its licence suspended due to warring factions within the establishment. Situations such as this are less than ideal for music publishers. As Neri said, "Publishers are at the mercy of 
a lot of ineffective collection societies around the world."

Only a few months ago, Winning Jah, a Nigerian artist based abroad discovered uncollected royalties sitting with American company SoundExchange. In May, reggae-dancehall act complained about not receiving royalties from the Ghana Music Rights Organisation. Last December, it was reported that the push for royalties collection in Rwanda failed as several establishments were reluctant to pay the stipulated fees. In Tanzania, not many artists are registered with collecting bodies, leading to a minister in the governmentto urge artists to sign up. Last year, some musicians complained about treatment meted out to them by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. 

"You can’t talk about ‘power to musicians’ when you do everything but empower them economically," jazz act Benjamin Webi said. "Your people don’t respond to emails, queries go ignored, phone conversations with your staff are cold, sometimes rude, unfriendly, and worse, you can’t give clear information about questions raised concerning the same royalties you purport to be doing everything possible to remit."

Compounding the problem of ineffective collection societies is the apathy to royalties collection, which Nigerian rapper MI Abaga addressed in a recent interview. 

“It’s the question of value as most artists don’t think there is a lot of monetary value from royalties," he said, before adding that it "is changing very quickly and it’s going to become better once the COSON crisis is sorted. It has a lot to do with the naira value so for instance if an artist knows that when he performs or writes a song, he or she can get far more than his or her royalties from COSON.” 

While collecting organisations across the continent might be inefficient, Neri's belief could be a source of optimism for stakeholders looking outside of the continent. 

“Creatively, there are some incredibly talented songwriters coming out of Africa," he said, "and if you also consider the emergence of technology and the entrepreneurs that are now appearing in that part of the world, it’s a market that people will be looking at much closer in the coming years."