10 Tips to Blow as an artiste in the Nigerian Music Industry
The Nigerian music industry as we all know is a ruthless jungle but with simple planning and focus this year (2020), a talented upcoming artiste can become a genuine star.
The Nigerian audience is very large, there is a lack of better structure in place which can render the most elaborate plans useless. OAPs trying to steal your money and label executives trying to steal your life. For new artists hoping to break out and claim some success, planning and timing can be the difference between “blowing up” and wallowing in the C-list.
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Here are our simple 10 tips to blow as an artiste that will help your career as an upcoming artiste in Nigeria.
(1) Create a brand for yourself: From the moment you begin to think of recording music to sell to an audience, you must understand that you have just ceased to be just a person.
Your audience start seeing you as a brand and all your work as products. and as such, you must consciously build a brand identity and image that fits the brand of the type of music you make and how you want it to be received as an artiste.
(2) Promote your song online: What a promoting website offer is a platform to share your music and keep your fans updated. if possible too try and find a way of creating a profile for yourself where you fans can read more about you. for example, VirginSound already has a section named Artist. This is a page where we can update your fans about you and where all your exclusive content can be viewed.
Also, you need to do ads on all the social medias by doing this you will build relationships with a core fan base as the year go by.
(3) Get interviewed: People connect with the music more when they connect with the artiste. Interviews provide a platform to tell your story and endear yourself to fans and anyone who cares enough to listen, watch or read. VirginSound TV already have your back concerning this, we have a Youtube channel where people can watch your interview and we will also blog about it on our website. Grab every opportunity for an interview by the horns.
It’s not enough to just tell your name and how you started singing in Nursery One, people want to know more and what you can offer.
Tell the interviewer about the times you spent hustling on the street and what prompt you into doing music. Every interview counts. Open yourself up to the audience and they will open up to you.
(4) Collaborate with other artistes: In your early days as an artiste, it is important to jump on as many songs as you can. Here’s why; every individual artist has a fan base that you can borrow from and working with them introduces your sound to a new set of people, and by that you might gain yourself more fan base.
Also it pushes your creativity and helps your development as an artist. Still, you have to be careful; some collaborations will do more harm than good and you must avoid them as much as possible because not everybody has the dream you have.
(5) Do your Research: Behind the glitz and cramped studios, the music business is a complex structure. As an upcoming artist, you owe it to yourself to study everything. study already made artiste how they sing, what you like and hate about them to blend your own brand.
Read up on artistes, contracts and record labels, watch interviews and documentaries and follow the news with dedication.This helps you to understand the fine print and workings of the music industry, before you end up signing a contract that will transform you into a glorified houseboy with no control over your career.
(6) Use Family and Friends to your Advantage: As an upcoming artiste, your family and friends are your first fan base, record label, A&R and managers, so always have a cordial relationship with them.You see that uncle that always acts yuppy, share your new song with him and ask what he thinks, share your work with your friends too and turn to them for support and advice in times of need.
(7) Get rid of the Opening Act Syndrome: Opening for other artists can be very frustrating especially when you feel you deserve more but as an upcoming artiste, you must be ready to kill your ego before it kills you.
Open for bigger artistes and with time, others will open to you too. What matters is the opportunity to perform to an audience and share your work and please don’t undermine any other artiste’s work because that will surely have bad impact in your career sooner or later.
Everyone must start from somewhere you know, it is your job to work your way up till you become the headline act.
(8) Famz everybody: If you’re to have a successful career, the relationships that you build with people will be a big part of that your success story.
You cannot pay your way through every door, you need powerful and influential people in your corner who believe in you and your ethos, so feel free to reach out to people who can help, scratch your back when you need to and famz every OAP, blogger, influencer or critics that you know because they are powerful in some areas you are not.
(9) Put your music on streaming platforms: One of the biggest misconceptions in Nigerian music is that artists don’t make money from streaming.
In the last few years, Nigerian artists has made millions of dollars from streaming songs online. On that now-infamous edition of the Loose Talk Podcast, M.I claimed that “Chairman“, his third studio album made him over 120,000 dollars from iTunes alone.
Put your songs on all streaming platforms. we can take care of that for you. Though, you probably won’t make as much as M.I from the start but that kobo-kobo change can become a river of cash.
Mind you, streaming platforms only pay you royalties (money) when you already have a huge fan base; when I say huge I mean thousands of fans that are ready to stream your songs when you releases them to the streaming platforms.
(10) Never lose your focus: As your journey begin, you become more familiar with the music industry and all its frivolities and this makes it is easy to get distracted.
Many careers have been cut short when the artist loses himself in the vices that creatives tend to indulge in, as an upcoming artiste you should remember that everything you do is a function of your brand and your career.
Lastly Observe Patience: Following these 10 steps should get you closer to success if followed correctly but none of it will matter if you are not patient enough, remember that saying “Rome was not built in a day“. Growing into a full-blown star can take years, even a decade but patience is always the key.
Furthermore, you need to be patient enough to remain hungry and consistent despite all the setbacks and challenges that are bound to come your way to stardom. Also, you need to spend money on making most of those mentioned above tips to set in place. Nothing comes without its own price.
One song will probably not do it, even two albums might not. Your smart-work, hard-work and humility will get you there gradually.
We hope you like our 10 tips to blow as an artiste in Nigeria and please don’t forget to rate this post and share your thoughts on this by dropping a comment below, it is very important to us. THANK YOU.
I am an upcoming artist and i want to be interviewed on tv station
i need your help please
We don’t run a TV station… We only promote music.
I’m an upcoming artist I think I have what it takes to be a start
09054414160…my contacts
..I’m from IMO state
Please i need a helping hand 🙏🏽🙏🏽