One of the most intriguing conversations about the music business conversation sessions by Ubi Franklin where he hosted Mr Eazi. As you already know, apart from being an artist, Mr Eazi has built a platform called Empawa which empowers artists giving them economic and creative freedom. The prize jewel of the company is Joeboy who needs no introduction.
We’ve listened to the entire conversation which is a little over 80 minutes bringing out key points, just for you.
On Empawa
Empawa provides label services which cater across the entire value chain. Production, Distribution, Promotion, PR, streams management and much more. As more artistes look toward being independent and are not skilled in the business aspect, the platform will charge a fee and handle all of these for the artiste
Empawa platform will soon be opened to all artists to have their business managed. Mr Eazi believes in quality over quantity which is what he’s exploring with Joeboy and J.Derobie who have gone on to be hugely successful. After a solidification of the process, they will open up to the audience allowing them to use the empawa services including being featured on the Empawa Youtube channel.
On The Nigerian Music Industry.
Access to finance is difficult because there are no traces of income earned. Structure needs to quickly evolve if we’re to benefit as an industry. Investors are afraid to invest because of the lack of an enabling structure.
IP (intellectual property) is a unique asset class that cannot be destroyed. Your music is an IP and research has shown that when an artist dies, the value of the IP increases by up to 7x.
Next Steps for the Industry
We need to move from having Talent for Hire conversations to Equity Conversations.We need to consider ways where we can own what we create and not give it out for cheap.
With Empawa, Mr Eazi is looking to build a collaborative platform stating that collaboration is critical to make a permanent mark in the music industry. He also wants to create a breadcrumb that will allow creatives get loans from financial institutions.
