In the last five years, the global music industry has witnessed a fascinating financial phenomenon, which is the mass acquisition of music catalogues. What began as a few headline-grabbing deals, e.g. Bob Dylan’s sale to Universal for an estimated $300 million, Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue to Sony for $500 million has now become a tidal wave. From Justin Bieber to Shakira to lesser-known independent acts, artists across the world are selling their life’s work to hedge funds, music rights companies, and private equity firms seeking stable, long-term returns from streaming royalties.
This isn’t just a music story, it’s a legal one. And it raises a pressing question for Nigeria. Can our own artists, sitting on decades of cultural gold, participate meaningfully in this new economy?
Despite Afrobeats’ explosive global acceptance and the rise of Nigerian artists as international icons, the answer is not so simple. Behind the success stories lies a fundamental weakness, a historically underdeveloped, poorly documented, and opaque intellectual property (IP) framework. And that weakness threatens to lock Nigerian music out of a global economic movement that is literally putting price tags on nostalgia.
The Global Catalogue Economy: Why the World is Buying Music
To understand the stakes, we must first understand the motivation. Why are investment firms buying song catalogues like real estate portfolios?
The answer lies in streaming economics. Music, particularly classic hits, has become a dependable asset class. Songs from the 1960s to the 2000s continue to generate predictable cash flows through streaming, sync licensing (for use in films, games, ads), and public performance royalties. These cash flows can be securitised, collateralised, and projected over decades. Music rights, in short, are becoming bonds just with more publicity.
What makes a catalogue attractive to buyers? Three things:
(1) Clear ownership,
(2) Clean chain of title, and
(3) Consistent income history.
In markets like the U.S. and U.K., decades of rights administration, performing rights societies, and professional publishing contracts mean these three requirements are often met. In Nigeria? Not quite.
A Glimmer of Strategy: Mr Eazi’s emPawa and the Push for Ownership
Still, there are signs of a structural awakening within the Nigerian music ecosystem. Notably, Mr Eazi, through his emPawa Africa collective, is actively exploring the business of catalogue investment and monetisation within the African market. This is arguably one of the first coordinated attempts by a Nigerian-based artist and entrepreneur to build a local rights portfolio with global commercial intent.
It is a bold move, but it is also a rare one.
While emPawa’s approach signals ambition and foresight, it also lays bare the underlying challenge: very few Nigerian artists or investors can pursue catalogue acquisition at scale without encountering the legal chaos that typifies our legacy music market.
The Nigerian Music Industry’s IP Crisis: A Legacy of Informality
Nigeria’s music scene has always thrived creatively but rarely legally. For much of its modern history, the industry has been dominated by informal relationships, handshake deals, and undocumented studio collaborations. Contracts, if they existed, were often one-sided or unsigned. Rights assignments were muddled, and many of the musicians, composers, and producers behind Nigeria’s most iconic works never saw or understood a publishing cheque.
Key problems include:
- Lack of rights registration with the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC)
- Absence of split sheets or written agreements identifying songwriters, composers, or producers
- Master recordings stored informally or controlled by defunct or untraceable labels
- Poor enforcement of copyright violations, especially in digital spaces
The result is a massive IP ecosystem that is rich in content but poor in structure.
Sampling Without Structure: The Rise of the Revival Economy
Ironically, it is this very heritage that now makes Nigerian catalogues so potentially valuable and so legally treacherous. As modern artists revive and sample old hits, from Highlife ballads to early 2000s Naija pop, a revival economy is emerging. Yet this economy is built on shaky legal foundations.
Most sampling in Nigeria today occurs without formal clearance. Artists either do not know who owns the rights, or they rely on oral permissions that carry no enforceable weight. In legal terms, that amounts to infringement, even when done in homage.
For potential catalogue buyers, this represents a significant risk. A catalogue tainted by years of unauthorised sampling, unclear ownership, or buried rights claims is a legal time bomb. No investor wants to buy into litigation.
The Legal Bottleneck: Why Nigeria May Miss the Catalogue Moment
Herein lies the tragedy. Just as the world is turning to Africa for sound, inspiration, and talent, Nigeria may be structurally unprepared to participate in one of music’s most lucrative transformations.
You cannot sell what you do not own and you cannot own what you cannot prove.
Many Nigerian artists, even established ones, do not have full documentation of their catalogues. They cannot provide rights assignment agreements, mechanical licenses, or proof of ownership over compositions and recordings. Even for post-2010 music, many works are trapped in a web of verbal agreements, label fallouts, and unregistered copyright.
Moreover, even where documentation exists, the data integrity required for global royalty collection (e.g., ISRC codes, publishing metadata, cue sheets) is often missing or inaccurate. Without it, catalogue monetisation remains a pipe dream.
Where Do We Go From Here?
If Nigerian artists, estates, and music rights owners are to benefit from the global catalogue economy, the legal system must evolve quickly and deliberately. Here’s what must happen:
IP Audits & Documentation: Artists must undertake legal audits of their catalogues identifying co-creators, executing split sheets, assigning rights, and consolidating documentation.
Digital Registration & Metadata Management: Copyright must be digitised, registered with NCC, and linked to proper metadata for exploitation across DSPs (Spotify, Apple, etc.).
Rights Education for Artists: Many legacy musicians are unaware of what they own or have signed away. Legal education is critical.
Catalogue Clean-up for Sampling: For modern artists sampling older works, pre-emptive clearance mechanisms should be adopted, and licensing templates standardised.
Conclusion:
The catalogue gold rush represents more than just a financial trend, it is a global recognition that music is not just culture, but capital. Nigeria, as one of the most creatively prolific nations on earth, should be at the centre of this moment. But unless we confront our legacy of informality, murky rights ownership, and poor documentation, we risk being remembered only for the sound, not the share.
In the end, catalogue monetisation is not just about ownership. It is about dignity, legacy, and the right of creators past and present to participate in the wealth their work continues to generate.
