Foremost Nigerian rap legend, Jude Abaga, famously known as M.I Abaga has revealed that the lack of structure in the Nigerian music industry has forced artists to sign publishing deals with foreign firms.
The famous ‘Short Black Boy’ disclosed that the situation has caused Nigerian musical acts to pay taxes to foreign countries and also hire foreign staffers.
The former Chocolate City boss stated this during a virtual symposium organised by the Harvard Kenny School Alumni Association of Nigeria on Friday last week.
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While speaking at the symposium with themed ‘The Africa Policy Dialogue Series: Harnessing Africa’s Demographic Dividend for Peace, Security and Productivity through Investments in Youth’, M.I asserted that the modern music industry started in 2000, however, it took many years before musicians started benefiting from it.
The now record label boss maintained there were not enough investments in Nigerian music, saying it was mostly difficult for his colleagues in the industry to get funding.
He stated, “In 2000, there was no music industry and the first people that started had no structure around them and literally even today as we speak, that structure is being built every day and unfortunately, what we find out is that our top artistes, if you take the top 10 Nigerian artistes, majority of their taxes are being paid to foreign countries, majority of their workforce will be people that are outside of the country.
“There are some investments in the music business but the real big investments are coming from outside and those catalogues, gradually, we are selling them off. As Europe is returning some of our artefacts, we are giving them our artefacts for the next 100 years.
“The bulk of my catalogue is now domiciled under some company that is owned by someone else there (abroad). It is almost like the burden to prove that their ideas and capabilities are viable is on the young Nigerians.”
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