Tiwa Savage has given her opinion on how record labels handle their artistes in Nigeria and her conclusion is that the label still do not know how to sell Afrobeats music.
The music diva stated this in an interview which had with Billboard as she, Davido and Mr Eazi covered the magazine’s latest issue.
When asked what drew her to the major-label path, Tiwa Savage noted that she (and the two other) already have huge followings and have songs on the bog playlists.
She added, however, that she still acts as an independent artiste though she is signed to a major label, adding that she looks forward to the time Nigerian (African) artistes will be rated and put on the same lists as Billie Ellish. This is not coming to place yet, according to her, simply because the labels have not haven’t really put their machinery behind the genre yet and do not know how to sell the Afrobeat music.
“I still act like an independent artist even though I’m signed to a major label. I think all of us [signed to a major] do. I think labels still don’t quite understand how to sell Afrobeats. And they haven’t really put their machinery behind the genre yet. A lot of times when we drop a record, it’s put on playlists like [Spotify’s] African Heat. We already come with huge followings. I look forward to when we’ll be on the same playlists as Billie Eilish or Justin Bieber.” Read also: “The Black Woman Is Being Limited”, Tiwa Savage Lends Her Voice For The African Women
“Give us that kind of global campaign — treat Afrobeats like a pop record and not a tastemaker record or something that cool urban kids in the diaspora listen to. How often do you see an American artist get signed and he or she already has 5 million followers on their own? Even 1 million? And you don’t want to give them the same push as Bieber? If [African artists] even had 25% of that push, Davido and Eazi would be billionaires. That’s the vision I want for Afrobeats. They haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. But when they do, it’s going to explode. What we’re enjoying now is the blood, sweat and tears that we’ve been putting up as individual artists“, she said.
