Nigerian artistes and Afrobeats music is really having its time in the sun right now. Today's artistes like Wizkid, Davido, Tiwa Savage, Tems, Fireboy, etc are eating big from the profits of their music. But things haven't always been like this. The reason they can enjoy the benefits they do today is because of the tremendous sacrifices of the artistes of old.
One veteran musician who is still very successful and agile today is singer Onyeka Onwenu. During a new press conference, Onyeka opened up about how tough the artistes of their day had it. How many did not see any profits from their greatest hits, and had their songs blatantly stolen many times. Onyeka Onwenu had a whole lot to say so without further ado, here's exactly what she said.
Speaking during a press conference to a team of reporters, Onyeka Onwenu said:
When you see some of us whose names you read about, you see on TV, you listen to our music, you automatically think that because we are famous, we are very rich. And we are rich. But quite often, you're not seeing it. I know that throughout my career, I've had to have like three other things that I am doing. And quite often it is from those endeavors that you make the money that you now use to put into your music. I remember that in the 80s, we were in a tough economic situation in Nigeria. Foreign companies were actually leaving, they were divesting and they were leaving. We used to have Polygram remember? We used to have CBS remember? We used to have EMI remember? These are international music recording companies and they were fully represented in Nigeria but they began to go. Some of us took the decision to register our own recording companies, finance our own music in every way, shape, and form. I can tell you, remember the song 'One Love', can I tell you I didn't make a kobo out of it. That's the truth. Because nobody was giving it to me. It made money but it was making money for other people. I know people who built houses based on what they made out of it. That was a monster hit. The facts I'm giving you, you had no idea. You can go along the line and ask many other musicians, take somebody like (the person who sang) 'Sweet Mother', ask his family how much money they made from that monster international hit? Not much. Because nobody was representing them. And so anybody can pick up that music, re-record it, use it anyhow, and make money out of it and they get nothing. So right from the beginning, we began to fight for these rights. It used to be there was a time when if you pirated somebody's music, it wasn't a criminal offence, it was a civil offence. You get fined a little bit of money which you're quick to pay and you go right back to what you were doing. All you needed was one LP and you could make copies. When we had cassettes, just one cassette and you just duplicate and you make all the money. This is what we've been going through. So some of us have been in this battle for a very long time sacrificing. I look at the younger artistes today and I wonder do they have any idea the sacrifices we made? I've gone on a hunger strike in front of NTA? Why? Because they were using my stuff. They used Iyogogo for 8 years without my permission, not a kobo was given to me. 8 good years. So the battle has been fierce and we've made sacrifices.
Wow, I'm sending all the flowers today to the artistes of old who paved the way for Afrobeats music and Nigerian music to be what it is today. They are so often unsung heroes but hearing stories like this is so good to really understand and appreciate the full breadth of what they did for the music industry.
