Music has become so widely accepted that it cuts across boundaries, culture, gender and languages. Like a popular author once said “the world is mad on music”, but have you ever wondered how our artistes make so much money from music? Here are 7 ways.
1) CD SALES
Many people will claim that sales of CD’s have dropped drastically with it being replaced with other forms, that is true in some regard, but CD sales still account for a large percentage of music sales in Nigeria. In other parts of Nigeria, CD sales is still the major driving force. Vehicles still come with the CD slot and many those people still have CD players at home and at work. Most artistes from the Easter and Northern areas of the country still make millions from CD sales.
2) COLLABORATIONS
Collaborations which is the coming together of more than 1 act to perform or record a song is always widely celebrated, especially when they produce a monster hit song. In some arrangement, to get an artiste to feature you, the artiste or his team must pay. That payment they recieve does not in any way transfer their rights on the song.
3) SONGWRITING
Not every song written by the creator must be performed by the creator. Songwriting is a profession of its own. Those songs can be sold to other acts who are best suited to it or those whose fame will help promote it more. Songwriting also comes in handy in TV and radio advert jingles. Apart from being paid directly, you’ll also earn royalties on its continuous usage. Cobhams Asuquo is a well known song writer.
4) SYNCHRONIZATION
In its simplest term, this is simply the combination of a song with some form of visual media. This often happens when a song is combined with images, either static or in motion. An example is when a song is used as a soundtrack in a movie, documentary or advert. Another example could be the soundtrack in games. Synchronization always attract some form of payment in royalties. Producers, gaming companies and advert agencies are always searching for music which they can use, and if your music fits, that is more income for them.
5) LIVE PERFORMANCES
This has over the years produced the highest earnings for most artistes. Depending on the booking rate, live performances can earn you a lot of money over a period. Davidos concert in 2018 was said to have fetched him over 500 million naira.
6) STREAMING
The days of downloading a song on a device are gradually fading away, as people now require more space on those devices for other things. Streaming offers them the option to listen to a song over an internet connection and save it in the “clouds”, they can then go back to it anytime they want to. Streaming helps an artiste earn money from each interaction with their songs. Mr Eazi hit headlines in 2019 after making several millions of naira from streaming of his songs alone.
7) ROYALTIES
Royalties are income generated from the exploitation of a work or body of work. Income remitted by publishers are royalties also. Artistes also sign up with a collective management organization (CMO).
In Nigeria there is a CMO for music. Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) is an example. A CMO has the machinery and personnel to help them earn royalties from the exploitation of their works in the public domain. Most artistes earn yearly income from the usage of their works, some of these income are in millions of naira