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Since Afrobeats’ fated boom to the global radar began with soaring acts of homegrown talents, all eyes have been on the future of the multi-billion dollar music scene.
With more foreign direct investment reflected in talent discovery, artiste promotion and global music publishing, a crop of indigenous record companies such as Chocolate City, among others, have been instrumental in charting a path for afrobeats global sojourn.
With a star-studded portfolio of developing artistes such as, MI Abaga, Jesse Jagz, Ckay, Blaqbonez, Young Jonn, Candy Bleakz, Major AJ, among others, the music company has continued to make its mark in the annals of Afrobeats, shaping the music community with riveting record releases and favourable global business deals.
As it marks two decades of solid growth in the sector, Guardian Music takes a look at the inner workings of the music business with Chocolate City Music’s acclaimed Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Peter Abuchi Ugwu, who took over the company’s leadership in 2021.
From the rigorous process of talent discovery to consolidating emerging trends in music marketing, especially via online media, as well as core challenges in the Nigerian music industry, the veteran music business expert takes us behind-the-scenes of running one of Africa’s most formidable music companies, as well as championing sustainable pathways for the industry’s spirited rise on the global stage.
It has been an interesting rise in Chocolate City’s development since you took over as CEO 2021. How does it feel managing this ship at this point?
It has been an interesting and dynamic ride and I have always been the mix. I started by being a sound engineer, and I moved and I became the personal manager then I became business manager, then was head of business development. Then I went on to co-founding an agency with Chocolate City, now, I’m the CEO. It’s interesting and where I’m, the role I create is creating value for all stakeholders: From the security man to the artiste we have, which we have eight now and then we control a huge back arts. Some artists, from Jeremiah Gyang to Ckay, to Young Jonn, and Blaqbonez’s new project. It’s interesting and now I have a new set of people where I have a new set of Gen-Z. Actively, I have about 60 staff, inactively I have about, sometimes, we hire up to 200 people per month, because of the agency side. It’s very interesting managing people and balancing all round, and then you know for now there is new crop of talented people who are Gen-Zs. And then, there is another generation after that, growing up I show up at work I don’t complain but now when you tell somebody show up at work by nine o’clock, you have to give them reason why they have to show up and you have to look for how to motivate. So, it’s been interesting, it’s been managing, we just keep on going to the goal.
Why do you think Chocolate City is primarily embracing this Gen-Z population as a workforce?
I always tell people that if you don’t innovate, you die. You have to look at the larger economy, who are the people that listens to music, are the younger people. It’s like I always tell people in my office jokingly once it’s time you are getting to 30 years, your priority will start changing. I always tell people that once you start paying NEPA bills, sending money home, your priorities have changed. You have few things that have changed and so your priority has changed than those younger people they listen to music in the morning, they also listen to music when they sleep. And for you, to be able to sign to those people, you need people that would be able to understand the way they think. That’s why we get the younger people because the way they think is different, understanding that social media is more important than the radio used to be some years ago. For example, if I ask you, I don’t know how active you are in TikTok, I don’t know how active you are in Instagram, you might be in Instagram. You might be on Facebook, Twitter you might be because of your career. But TikTok is crazy, before I started working on music, I never used to send, but now there is another web, Snapchat. Most people, like the younger people in UK use more Snapchat than they use phones, than they make calls. You have to get those people to understand your consumers, and when you understand your consumer you understand how to tailor your product to them, and again they are the future, so it make sense.
Tell us about your experiences on some specific key projects that you have handled since you took over as CEO?
I think Blaqbonez’s new project, Emeka must shine, is one of the top there. For me, some of the projects we have dropped I see them as my kids, and I can’t really pick and choose any one over the other. I remembered when I signed Blaqbonez and at that time Blaqbonez was one of the hottest people whom everybody wanted to sign, and at that time, I couldn’t compete with the money others had. When I sat down with him, I was trying to explain to him that we can get somewhere. He was like where? I was trying to explain to him that ‘you are an ambassador for certain kinds of people, and you need to speak to them.’ I managed one of the best hip hop artistes in Nigeria for about 12 years. I was telling him I understand how hip hop works, but he has to understand that this music can change the course of one’s life and generation. Blaqbonez is very articulate and could communicate a message clearly.
Blaqbonez can be on a song with 10 people, but once he says a course word, he stands out. I was trying to explain to him that ‘you need to start speaking for your generation, and people that follow you. You have to create a tribe and just hear this album and see where he was coming from, and till now doing this body of work that communicates.’ Now he speaks to a wider audience, if you hear his new project, there is identity on the fourth project. When you hear it, you’ll know where he is coming from, and you’ll also know where he is going to. You understand even the roll out for the project. It was the same thing with Young Jonn. He was explaining his stance to me about love and explaining to me about his relationship with his mom, and how he lost her to cancer. And just explaining how he went to Ibadan, how he was running to Lagos every week, how he squatted, and telling me his journey with love. And then dropping Love Is Not Enough volume one. The drum progression is different, and he is the only person I have seen combine Amapiano and Afrobeats so seamlessly. I believe in songs being more than just songs, I feel songs and projects are the way we communicate certain role, certain emotions, certain reach out. I feel music should be more than something that we dance to.
What’s your view on dropping projects these days, considering the need for hits and the importance of quality?
I think that it’s all about balance, because hits bring it to the conversation. The hits bring it to the conversation but when you get to the conversation, you have to sell a story and the best way to communicate is the body of work. I always tell people in my office, the management team, so to say, that no matter who you are as an artiste, you can be forgiven when you have a hit. A hit is very important. I think it is harder; we always have to strive in between in the pursuit of looking for a hit so we don’t lose the core of the artiste. That’s why for us how we run, we always let creativity lead. We have to understand that there is gap between this who we are, and we want to do sincere music, conscious music, at the same time we want to create hits, at the same time this is what the tempo is saying out there at the same time we need to look for a safe landing for all then let the artiste create freely.
What are some of the things you do to just keep yourself grounded in the music and business side of things?
I feel these days you need to look for a balance if not depression will just crush you. Typically, I wake up by 6.00am. I go to the gym one hour in the morning before going to work. First thing I do is sort out my day to day operations, which I make the key decisions on, although most members of the team in the departments do most of the hard work. I do team meetings with key internal stakeholders and after that I have meetings with external stakeholders. You know with where music is now the streaming services are very important. From just asking what’s the trend today? What’s the biggest playlist today to finding ways to keep those relationships and just make sure there is an overall growth in the company’s success in line with what my goal is, and my goal has exceedingly taken over. It’s sort of creating a safe haven for talents, staff and investors. I want everybody that is connected to us to grow. My background of how I have been involved in the industry sort of prepared me in my day to day running as CEO. I have great experience with A&R because I have been doing that for the longest time. I was also a producer. I also ran the business development unit for chocolate city for a long time. I understand all the departments and I focus on just overseeing them on a day to day basis. Outside work, I try to play small. It just creating a balance in between and then at the center of all I have God in the middle.
Are you still involved in the discovery process of new musicians to your label?
This generation pays attention more to success, not just hard work. The generation before us really cared about work, but now you people care about success, because people feel that music is very successful. Being a musician is a successful thing, everybody wants to be an artiste, so, what we do is that we have process. Eventually, we have an academy called Nu Tribe, and next year, as part of our plan we are going to make it public. What we do is we have artists, once we start looking for an artiste be online, it could be from radio, it could be a referral my email is out there so people send me song randomly every day. There is a dain a week that I sit down to just listen to them and look for talent, and when I find I send it to the A&R team. I make the final call but I let the process go through it, the A&R will look at it and say those this person have the idea. Social media looks at it and say can this person grow? Once we make a decision then we put them through the academy and then most of the artiste sort of have a two year contract.
After that two years, then you have the freedom, where we will move you to Chocolate City music or we will just let you go and say maybe you are not a good fit for us. Sometimes you have great talent but we just feel like the are not a great fit for us, sometimes I recommend them to other labels and tell them you are going to be a contribution at this time, but you you are not a fit. That’s the sort of the process I’m involved in all the process of signing the artiste, because I believe that whoever you sign defines the future of your business.
What would you look out for when you want to invest in signing an artiste?
Number one, I think your personal drive is very important. I always tell artistes that music is expensive now. Every song costs about 100 to 120 million naira to produce and market. You have to check whether the artiste has the right drive, because, sometimes, you might end up spending so much money and the artiste will just want to stay in his house and play games. The second thing is talent. Also, the person must be willing to learn and unlearn, because when you have an artiste that says ‘hey this is what I want, I can’t change it,’ it’s a problem. Even with us as executives, we are learning new trends everyday. I was telling somebody recently that I have known Wizkid for the longest time, and because of his huge database of fans, he can tweet his song and then the label does the rest and he doesn’t need to show up for extensive press runs. He has had to understand the types of pictures to post and all that. Every artiste that is successful has had to be very involved in the creative process, and in the way they put out music.
It’s the era of Artificial Intelligence in the music business. How do you think Afrobeats now could leverage upon it, to capitalise on its global successes?
I think AI is a tool we could use for learning. I personally have a view about the part where AI could sing your song, which now I feel there is more intellectual property risk, although there are a set of laws they have created to protect that. At the same time I feel you could learn a lot of things with AI. You could wake up and say ‘hey, what are the top trends in Brazil today, or who are the top artiste in Brazil, or how do I promote my song in Brazil? And AI gives the options.’ I always tell people about focusing on what we need first. Regardless, one has to enroll in the ‘University of YouTube.’ It is where everybody needs to go back and learn. I feel AI could enhance learning and help you understand the music market and how to conquer it.
Why do you think fewer collaborations happen among artistes from different African regions?
I think that even for us, generally I think the future of this industry lies in feature promotion and cross marketing. Originally, our structure makes it harder for Africans to collaborate. It’s funny that it’s easier for you to fly from Lagos to London than to fly from London to Central Africa. It is harder to go to Gabon than to go to America. When you think about it, in the coast of West Africa, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Ghana are the only English speaking countries and a bit of Liberia. Every other country on the coast speaks French, but we are so disconnected from each other. The whole of America is about 300 million people, and Nigeria alone is about 220 million. By the time you add the other countries, Africa’s population is bigger than America, and we are growing more. When we look at this, we should be looking at the future and see what we can achieve as a united front.
Among the key issues in Afrobeats presently is the lack of local touring. What do you think is a way out of this?
There are a lot of factors for this. Firstly, the economic factor is a good start. An average artiste would go to America and charge five thousand dollars to do a club appearance. And back home, that’s five million naira. How many clubs or smaller venues will pay an artiste that chargesmuch for a performance? They are not much. Once an artiste starts getting traction, they rather just want to be abroad. And subconsciously there is a sense of security you get abroad that you hardly get at home, so most of them just want to stay abroad. Now their lifestyle is also fitted for abroad, as with most of them what they wear is dollars and pounds and what they drive is expensive. Their needs have moved to dollar and they have to earn in dollar to maintain that, and when they come back home they have to charge in dollar. The problem again is that the music is growing, but the infrastructure is not growing.
In Nigeria, Eko Hotel will take about 5,000 people. Think about it, if 5,000 people pay, let’s say Nl99 to attend a concert, how much is that? It’s not even enough to cover the cost of renting sound equipment. I think that the more the music grows, the more people that have more disposable income should grow so people can afford these tour experiences. This is what happened with Afro Nation; when they mentioned the ticket prices everybody said they can’t go. Number one, can people afford it, number two security, number three the infrastructure to travel around has to be in place. Most of time there is no direct flight to where you have to go. Interestingly, if the concerts are free people are going to show up. Do the artistes have the incentive to do free concerts? They do not. At the end of the day, it is just purely economical; it’s not personal, because at the end these guys have to pay bills. It’s a challenge we have because most artistes want to be away for three months, but at the same time you have to explain to them that despite being away, one can’t afford to lose their home base. Once they do, they start falling immediately. You have to balance it internationally and you have to balance locally and everybody likes dollars.
With Afrobeats inspiring rise, how do you think we can sustain this momentum?
You see this question, I have been thinking desperately about it. I’m a student of history, so, I always go back and ask myself what happened to reggae music. Reggae music was so huge at that point. I remember Makossa. I remember Awilo Logomba and those guys that were in the spotlight while growing up; what happened to that music? Now we have Afrobeats, and our artistes are selling out stadiums. For me, as long as there is always value, as long as we create value for every stakeholder involved, this music is going to stand the test of time. The American music industry is very robust and profitable; if you look at the total income we generate from African music, it’s not even one 10th of what American music generates. As we keep on going and building our ecosystem, as long as there is more value for everybody, the music business will keep on growing. Then on the government’s part we need to decipher how we can create institutions to protect this thing we own. How do we keep trending Afrobeats? How do we monetize it? How do we make it the best? American movies show America as a promised land. As a young boy in Nigeria I wanted to go to America, but then I started going out and discovered there are other places that are more beautiful. But at the same time, they have created institutions around them to protect what they have. How do we start building those key venues? And you know that once the government invests in this, the crime rate would reduce, and a lot of younger people are going to start having meaning to their life. All that energy they have, they are going to put it towards something. I personally believe that Afrobeats will still stand, and I always tell people Africa is more than Afrobeats. I just feel Afrobeats is the vehicle in which we have arrived at the world’s age, the more we keep more genres open, and then, we can compete with other genres head-to-head. But as long as we become great value, we will always be relevant.
Chocolate City Music has reached a milestone of two decades. What are some of visions for the company moving forward?
The more I think about this, the more I think Chocolate city is family. It is a home; it’s more than just business for me. I keep on looking forward to it everyday. When we are 40, I will look back and say this is where we were 20 years ago. I have always told people that I want my nephew or my nieces, or when I have kids and they decide to work in the music industry, that Chocolate City will be there for them to come and work. And the goal is to create a safe haven for everybody to compete globally. And I want to create a system where everybody gets compensated, a system where we can be Nigeria stock exchange soon, we can be New York stock exchange. We can have an office everywhere in the world that competes head to head, and not only within Afrobeats. For me, it is very important that Chocolate City is the story for every young entrepreneur in Nigeria. Just them knowing that two people started a company from Jos, and 20 years later, the company has grown big and doing it without government intervention. It’s just a story that inspires every young entrepreneur from Nigeria so they understand who we are; this is what we are into.
Finally, if there’s one trend you would love to bring back to the Nigerian music scene what would it be?
We used to have Star Mega Jamz or Star Trek where Nigerian musicians tour Nigeria. I have seen almost all the states in Nigeria to the fullest and I wish all these younger artistes have the opportunity to tour Nigeria, to look at how beautiful Nigeria is. A time where they can go to Benue, they go to Jos, they go to Kaduna, both Lokoja, and they service their fans directly. Those are the things I wish these younger Afrobeats stars will get just that opportunity to touch those that really contribute so much to them.
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