Pirates or entrepreneurs? Informal music distributors and the Nigerian recording industry crisis

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on field research in Lagos and seeks to examine a group of actors that is often neglected in the literature as well as in local discourses. I refer to these actors as informal music distributors: small-scale entrepreneurs like tape bootleggers and bloggers, whose business is the distribution of music recordings via channels that are not (yet) used by established institutions and which are not or only partially legitimized by them. Labelled with the catch-all term ‘pirates’, these actors are often depicted as exploiters of those who do the real work (like musicians or labels) and as both the cause and profiteers of a continuous crisis the Nigerian recording industry has found itself in since the 1980s. By contrast, I suggest a more nuanced perspective on the complex roles that informal music distributors play in this crisis. To this end, the paper investigates how the crisis unfolded, its impact on the Nigerian recording industry, and how different informal music distributors relate to it. I argue that by focusing on these distributors’ entrepreneurial skills, we can learn about how they deal with crises, how they turn precarious conditions into success while their formal competitors struggle to do so and explore their larger impact on Nigerian music.

KEYWORDS:

• Piracy
• crisis
• entrepreneurship
• music industry
• popular music
• Nigeria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I wish to thank Ute Röschenthaler, Matthias Krings and the anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Parts of the research presented in it have been funded by the Sulzmann-Stiftung, DAAD and Gutenberg Nachwuchskolleg Mainz, to whom I express my gratitude.

2. The term ‘artiste’ (derived from French) is widely used in Nigeria to refer to contemporary singers and rappers, many of whom are not trained in terms of playing an instrument, which is generally seen as qualification for being a ‘musician’. With digital production and recording technology and the possibilities it brought for ‘non-musicians’ to make songs, ‘artistes’ play the focal role in today’s Nigerian music industry.

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/world/africa/nigeria-lagos-afrobeats-music-piracy-seyi-shay.html (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

4. The original Pidgin English was lost in Bender’s transcription and the quote should read: ‘Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’, translating to: ‘The Monkey is working, but the baboon is eating’ (Mensah, 2013, p. 100).

5. https://www.theafricareport.com/14697/nigerias-king-sunny-ade-i-see-myself-as-a-freelance/(Last accessed: 9 July 2019).

6. http://combandrazor.blogspot.com (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

7. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/02/137560034/the-golden-years-of-nigerian-boogie?t=1534705284083 (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

8. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/18/who-was-william-onyeabor-nigerian-synthesizer-whiz (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

9. His name has been inconsistently spelled as both ‘Tuface’ and ‘2Face’. However, in 2016 he changed his name to ‘Tubaba’.

10. https://www.pulse.ng/buzz/eldee-music-mogul-details-how-greed-has-destroyed-music-distribution-in-alaba-market-id6034770.html (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

11. Between 2015 and 2018, the exchange rate for 1€ fluctuated between N250 and N400.

12. https://www.pulse.ng/entertainment/music/pulse-exclusive-how-nigerian-artists-are-underpaid-by-local-digital-distribution-companies-and-the-system-id7340538.html (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

13. Digital Millenium Copyright Act, see http://dmca.com (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

14. http://topnaijamusic.com (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

15. https://www.pulse.ng/buzz/eldee-music-mogul-details-how-greed-has-destroyed-music-distribution-in-alaba-market-id6034770.html (Last accessed: 25 November 2018).

16. On-Air Personality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Simmert

Tom Simmert is a doctoral student in the department of Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He carried out field research in South Africa and Nigeria. His research interests include media anthropology, popular music and popular culture.