Nigerian star musician Mr Eazi real name Tosin Ajibade has launched the African Music Fund Scheme; a funding platform that will contribute to Africa’s young musicians.
According to CNN, the African Music fund is worth $20 million and is being funded by 88mph, a company vested in growing African businesses.
With African Music Fund, Mr Eazi plans to change the game; providing a new funding model to give support to artists who need it to push their music and expand their catalog.
“Artists cannot go to banks to get money for their music because financial institutions don’t understand how to secure intellectual property,” He says. “They get it for physical properties but not for music. So, because not a lot of people understand the music business, there is no finance product for musicians,” the 29yr old explained.
How Africa Music Fund will work
The scheme will select artists to receive funding depending on their current earnings and projected income using metrics such as streaming revenue.
“For artists who already have footprints in the industry, we will just do our research. We can check how much they are earning or likely to earn from their streaming revenue, for example,” he explained.
These young artists will receive money to produce and market their music content. After the initial advance invested, the funds will be paid back in installments once their music begins to bring in revenue.
Mr Eazi says the Africa Funding Scheme will also help artist push their music by connecting them with performance bookings and finding new markets for their music.
“Let’s say we have a two-year contract with someone. In those two years, we will be their representative, helping them manage their music, and as they grow we will be deducting the initial investment from their earnings,” he explained.
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This is not Eazi’s first forage into the business of music in Africa. In 2018, he launched emPawa Africa, an incubator program that provided artists with funding and also, resources for their music.
emPawa Africa also gives new artists access to radio and TV airplay. The platform trains them to become independent music entrepreneurs. emPawa Africa takes credit for bringing to limelight some of Africa’s current young stars like Joeboy and Ghana’s J Derobie.
Meanwhile, Eazi says emPawa Africa will be collaborating with a music technology company Vydia. This partnership will bring to life Cinch Distro, a new music platform for new artists.
Via Cinch Distro, artists will be able to upload their music to major music streaming platforms with just N500 naira (about $1.19), or 4000 naira (about $10) for unlimited song uploads.
“The way it works is that they register on the platform and make their music. It has an AI-based tech that will filter their possible revenue based on the number of streams they get on the platform alongside a couple of other metrics,” he said.
“The artists basically use the platform to distribute their music and we monitor their progress. That way we can make data-backed decisions about who to invest in,” he added
This is incredible work from Mr Eazi and we can’t wait to meet the new artist this venture will birth.
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