Nigerian music producers appear to have woken up to the skewed nature of the music business recently, which is just as well as because they had been jonesing! 

Production is often the biggest key to a single’s success here, the audience hasn’t shown an apetite for well written, profound pop songs. They just want to dance! Who gives them that? When ‘It’s Young John the wicker produzer‘ comes through the speakers, dancers are already mid-shoki.

So why shouldn’t these guys make more? The suspicion is that there isn’t enough of an understanding of what they’re due and what the practice is in other other well established industries.

By producer, beatsmiths are the ones being referenced as even production work is multi-faceted which may only involve song direction, assembling all contributing performers as well as actual beat crafting.  There are two main ways music producers get paid.

1. Upfront

This…