The Creative Hub will be Warner’s first fully-owned office in Nigeria. WMA says the expansion into Lagos means they will “provide more of its A&R, Operations and Marketing expertise to Nigeria’s creative ecosystem”.
WMA’s plans to expand in Nigeria arrive at a time of significant recorded music industry growth in the wider Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. According to IFPI, SSA was the fastest-growing music region in 2023. It was also the fastest-growing music region globally in 2022. In 2023, recorded music revenues in SSA grew by 24.7%, fuelled by a 24.5% rise in paid streaming revenues.
Last week, Warner Music Africa’s management team, Alfonso Perez-Soto, President of Emerging Markets, Warner Music; Temi Adeniji, Managing Director, WMA; Laverne Thomas, Operations Lead, WMA, and Yoel Kenan, CEO, Africori, met with officials of Federal Government in Abuja
According to Warner Music Group, the meeting with the government officials was to “establish crucial relationships and to bolster WMA’s mission of empowering Nigeria’s vibrant creative sector”. The WMA executive team met two senior ministers and the Special Advisor to the President of Nigeria. Amongst them were: Minister Ayodele Olawande, Nigeria’s Minister of State For Youth Development, who provides insights into youth empowerment initiatives and holds a crucial role in the creative sector for national development. They also met with Minister Hannatu Musawa, the country’s Minister for Art, Culture, and the Creative Economy, and a prominent Nigerian lawyer and politician. The WMG team also met with Adeagbo (Oluwadunsin) Ayomide, the Special Advisor to the President on Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.
In 2019, Warner Music Group (WMG) invested in Chocolate City in a deal they (WMG) said would “dramatically grow the reach of African artists around the world, and will create new opportunities for global superstars in the region”.
In 2022, WMG acquired a majority stake in Africori – an African music distribution, music rights management and artist development company with offices in Lagos, Johannesburg and London.
WMG first invested in Africori in early 2020. The first deal granted WMG access to “Africa’s largest catalogue and A&R network”, thus enabling WMG to establish a presence in many African markets for the first time. WMG’s publishing division, Warner Chappell Music, also inked a global deal with Africori in 2020.
In addition, the Warner Music Group / Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund (WMG/BFF SJF) has contributed more than $400,000 to Nigeria’s creative sector via its Repertoire and Core Funds. For example, it contributed $200,000 in 2022 to the West African Vocational Education and $150,000 in 2023 to The Sarz Academy which nurtures emerging talent in music production.
Meanwhile, WMG noted on Wednesday (May 22) that Temi Adeniji and Alfonso Perez-Soto’s leadership “has been instrumental in driving the success of Warner Music’s global artists in Africa and their local repertoire across the globe”.
WMG has played “a pivotal role” in signing and promoting CKay, whose viral single Love Nwantiti has achieved significant success, recently being certified 8x platinum in the US. WMA recently signed 26-year-old Nigerian singer-songwriter Joeboy, with more than 2 billion streams in the past five years. The deal allowed Joeboy to launch his record label, Young Legend with a global distribution partnership with WMA.
