Mobile phones ring changes for Nigeria’s music industry

LAGOS, Nigeria — Phizbarz is only 23 but hopes to become the next Nigerian Afropop star to be famous across Africa — and to get himself known and earn a living, he’s using his mobile phone.

The young performer from the country’s commercial and entertainment capital, Lagos, floods social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with clips of his music.

Sometimes he appears as a baseball-capped rapper surrounded by gyrating, scantily clad dancers, sometimes as a sheikh in a pristine white dishdasha, dripping with gold.

“If you want to be someone, you have to show off,” he said from behind the wheel of a sparkling red Mercedes that he borrowed from his manager.

In all, Phizbarz has composed about 100 songs but has never produced an album.

Instead, his creations are converted into ringtones by telephone companies, who sell them individually and pay him and his label 60 percent of the profits.

Phizbarz himself earns about 50,000 naira ($164) a month, which he considers a “decent” wage.

In Nigeria, performing artists have long been left to their own devices because of the lack of a structured market, making them powerless against piracy that accounts for most sales.

But for the last three years, there’s been a revolution in Nigeria’s music industry because of digital sales and especially mobile telephones, which are bringing in increasingly more revenue.

Analysts PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated in a report published late last year that Nigeria’s music industry was worth $47 million in 2015 and should rise to $86 million by 2020.

“Nigeria’s total music revenue is dependent on ringtones and ringback tones, with the legitimate music sector being small otherwise,” it added.

“There are lots of talented musicians on this market who had issues with piracy, it was difficult for them to sell their music,” said MTN Nigeria’s marketing director, Richard Iweanoge.

“We enable them to monetize the work. Every year we pay out more money to the artists, it’s really a working formula.

“Nigerians actually wanted to buy music, they just didn’t have the means to acquire it legally.”

The law of averages suggests few of the country’s wannabe megastars will attain the dizzy heights of fame.

Phizbarz knows how hard it is, but posting photos and videos online, and touring the local music scene and radio stations is a way of trying to catch the attention of one of the top industry figures, he said.

“You have to know a lot of managers, radio presenters. Even if your beats are good, it is more about who do you know in the industry.

“It’s more a brand that you are developing, it’s business.”

There are lots of talented musicians on this market who had issues with piracy, it was difficult for them to sell their music.” Richard Iweanoge, MTN Nigeria’s marketing director value of Nigeria’s music industry in 2015, according to analysts