RINGTONES: Mobile phones ring changes for Nigeria’s music industry

MTN, which has 60 million subscribers in Nigeria, says it is the largest distributor of music

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Phizbarz is only 23 but hopes to become the next Nigerian Afropop star to be famous across Africa — and to get himself known and earn a living, he’s using his mobile phone.

The young performer from the country’s commercial and entertainment capital, Lagos, floods social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with clips of his music.

Sometimes he appears as a baseball-capped rapper surrounded by gyrating, scantily clad dancers, sometimes as a sheikh in a pristine white dishdasha, dripping with gold.

“If you want to be someone, you have to show off,” he told AFP, from behind the wheel of a sparkling red Mercedes that he borrowed from his manager.

In all, Phizbarz has composed about 100 songs but has never produced an album.

Instead, his creations are converted into ringtones by telephone companies, who sell them individually and pay him and his label 60 percent of the profits.

Phizbarz himself earns about 50,000 naira ($164, 150 euros) a month, which he considers a “decent” wage.

In Nigeria, performing artists have long been left to their own devices because of the lack of a structured market, making them powerless against piracy that accounts for most sales.

In the packed streets of Lagos — a capital of creativity and temple of resourcefulness — bootlegged copies are sold at car windows or between packets of sweets, cigarettes and recent Nollywood releases — many of which are also pirated.

A post shared by +Ve Vybz ?????? (@phizbarz) on May 7, 2017 at 9:14am PDT

– Ringtone market –

For the last three years, there’s been a revolution in Nigeria’s music industry because of digital sales and especially mobile telephones, which are bringing in increasingly more revenue.

Analysts PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated in a report published late last year that Nigeria’s music industry was worth $47 million in 2015 and should rise to $86 million by 2020.

“Nigeria’s total music revenue is dependent on ringtones and ringback tones, with the legitimate music sector being small otherwise,” it added.

Instead of hearing a beep while waiting for a caller to pick up, companies play the latest releases and offer them for download.

Telephone operators, led by South African mobile giant MTN, sensed the potential of Nigeria, which is home to nearly 190 million people and where music is almost a religion.

MTN, which has 60 million subscribers in Nigeria, said it is the largest distributor of music.

Ringtones are sold at 50 naira each and it also operates a download platform MTN Music Plus, which competes with world-leading online music sites such as iTunes.

“There are lots of talented musicians on this market who had issues with piracy, it was difficult for them to sell their music,” said MTN Nigeria’s marketing director, Richard Iweanoge.

“We enable them to monetise the work. Every year we pay out more money to the artists, it’s really a working formula.

“Nigerians actually wanted to buy music, they just didn’t have the means to acquire it legally.”