Premier Music’s Michael Odiong: Nigerian music industry is a mess

Premier Music started as Philip West Africa Records in March 1963. Then it became Phonogram. The Dutch label Polygram acquired major shares from Phonogram in the early 1970s, and took over both operations and name.

As Polygram, the company did business till the early 1990s. Then the economic downturn following the infamous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) forced Polygram out in 1991. That exit resulted in two developments: the name of the company changed for the last time and Nigerians took over the company’s operations, with the present managing director coming into the position in 1994. 

One recent evening at Freedom Park on Lagos Island, the company’s business manager Michael Odiong spoke about Premier Music’s challenges, the music industry’s technological changes and the relationship between music today and from decades past.

MUSIC IN AFRICA: In the 2000s Premier Music attempted a comeback. This now appears to have been shortlived. What happened?

MICHAEL ODIONG: We signed five artists. Three of them released their albums but the remaining two couldn’t. Their contracts expired before anything could happen. We saw that five artists was not sustainable and had to restructure. So a lot of things happened between 2008 and 2012. The Nigerian situation made it very difficult. We had about 30 radio stations. How do you start promoting on different stations when these presenters ask you for humungous amounts of money? It is a major problem in the country.

Sometimes we used our own personal money to treat these DJs and presenters. It was quite challenging and frustrating because at the end of the day, your music isn’t played the way it’s supposed to be. I’m not a musician but because I work for a label it was my duty to make sure that promotions were done. And I wasn’t getting the kind of support we expected from the radio stations and even friends that were DJs. They asked for too much money.

At the end of the day, most of the artists we signed fizzled out, though videos were trending at a point in 2008, and they were all unique. The trend of having more highlife singing in Igbo from the Phynos and the Flavours and the rest of them was actually started by the likes of Zbyte [one of PM’s artists].

Is it possible that PM was trying to capture the past instead of looking forward?

It wasn’t really capturing the glory days. What we did was take the strengths of artists from various genres of music: reggae, highlife, R&B. It is now a case of who does it first and people realise or discover. Flavour’s style is not new. But because he has been able to attain the spotlight, people attribute his kind of music to him, but really it wasn’t. If you listen to a Chris Mba from the 1980s, you discover that what Phyno and the rest of them are doing has been done. The percussion and everything. One of our slogans at Premier is ‘Everything New is Old’.

The artist might feel, ‘Oh! it’s a new thing’, but for us, we know where the sound is from. Their producers know the origin of their sounds. I’ll give you an example. The late MC Loph released the ‘Osondi Owendi’ remix (originally by Osadebe), the major song that made Flavour’s name. The rights belonged to us. We pursued it and I finally met MC Loph. I said, ‘How could you? Did you search? Did you ask?’ He said he left everything for the record label and when the label said it couldn’t get it, he went ahead. He apologised and I said, ‘Look we have to find a way round this because you have infringed on our right.’ When he released another song sampling Sir Victor Uwaifo, I was one of the people who he called. He said, ‘Look oga come and listen to this one. Abeg how do we want to do this?”

Unfortunately, he died before that song was released. Ten years back, we would have said the music industry was still growing. People did not understand what right ownership was. Not now. No producer or record label will say that they do not understand copyright. But sometimes you look at these things and you say, ‘Is this our priority?’ Timaya did a remix with Ras Kimono. We didn’t know anything about it. But two years later, he sampled Blackky on ‘Dance’ with P-Square. We had an agreement.

You say going after copyright infringment is not a priority. What is the label’s priority?

We are making sure that the Premier Music catalogue is digitised and available on every digital platform and not just about Nigeria. MusicPlus? Cloud9? Boom Player? You would find our songs there. We have over 2 000 albums. These are songs recorded from the 1960s down to the late 2000s. We have gotten licence to be value added service providers from the NCC [Nigerian Communications Commission]. That gives us the licence to do business with all the telcos. So we handle our own caller ring back tunes, short codes, everything digital. Soon we can start thinking of signing new acts because no matter how digital you go, if you do not have a new act you are not a functional record label.

What challenges have dogged Premier Music since Nigerians took over?

By that time piracy was at its peak. Other record labels had to quit, but we stayed.

Is there an answer today? The Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) and the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) have made interventions but nothing seems to have worked.

The problem of piracy is not just a Nigerian thing. America has piracy issues but it is difficult to pirate their works. What we are not doing right is: number one, we don’t have a structure. And as long as you do not have a coherent structure, both from government and the industry, you will run into issues. What are the laws to fight piracy? There are laws but they’re just dormant. If you do not enforce those laws, those laws will remain dormant.

Secondly, is the industry united enough to face the executive, legislature and judiciary? PMAN has three, four factions. COSON, MCSN (the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria), everybody seems to be doing their own business. It’s no longer for the common interest but for individual pockets. As long as you do not have a structure and united body to fight piracy, the government will not do anything about it. Look at the National Assembly. You have lawyers, accountants, surveyors, you have all sorts of people there. How many entertainers are in the National Assembly? We don’t have any.

So if I talk of piracy, the National Assembly will not understand. They’ll say, ‘Look, are you not an entertainer? Look, we’ll pay you. Come and sing.’ But they do not understand that entertainment is the next biggest thing. In fact, if not bigger than oil. You need professionals in the industry to be part of the executive, to be part of the legislature. We need entertainment lawyers that are enlightened and travelled to be part of the judiciary.

What do you think of music today?

From both personal and company perspectives, we have lost serious content. Lyrically, philosophically, everything. When you listen to, for example, highlife from the 1960s, it was about love. It was about reality. Olaiya could sing about love so much but it was not vulgar.

But Victor Olaiya could be accused of vulgarity.

You mean “omode n shey mi, sisi mi da / olo jowo ko wa sun s’aya mi / ko wa fun mi l’oyan tutu mu oh”?  (Translation: I’m like a child. Where is my lady? Darling, come lay on my chest. Come and give me cold breastmilk to drink.)

Yes.

How many people understood Yoruba and what he was saying? ‘Baby Mi Da’ is a love song. Some of the lyrics go to the point. But the question is, is it that vulgar that people cannot listen to it? Listen to most of Lil Kesh’s lyrics. Listen and watch. Let’s not even look at the lyrics. Watch the videos of most of these young artists. It’s all about nudity. It’s all about alcohol.

Most of the songs that sounded vulgar back in the days were actually not aired by radio stations. You could only listen to it when your father bought a turntable and played it at home. Now we have a lot of stations not censoring anything. As long as the artist pays good money to the on air personality, they play it.

The age of an artist making waves today is between 20 and 45. Those between 35 and 45 today grew up listening to songs in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. A lot of people looked up to the likes of Evi Edna (Ogholi), Ras Kimono, Alex Zito, Alex Cole. But these guys all disappeared for greener pastures because of SAP. Ibrahim Babangida drove all of them away. Music wasn’t making money. International record labels left the country. Nigerian owners took over and of course the business was different. Maybe they were not being treated the way the oyinbos (whites) were treating them.

Are you saying Nigerian artists were treated better by white people?

A white man will make sure an artist is very comfortable. When others say, “Look, you don’t have any content,” the white man sees the potential, takes it, pushes it and they see results. But the Nigerian case is not so. Once they say you don’t have anything, everybody kills it there. Sometimes they say, “This one na my person, this is the person I want.” They bring in sentiments instead of business. So these guys left the country. The younger ones that were listening to their music, who were trying to be musicians, did not have any mentorship.

American hip hop was what they were listening to. And some said, “Since this is here, let’s make something that’s different. Let’s say it’s Afro hip hop.”

Is this progress?

To a large extent it’s not progress. It’s progress in the sense of beats, but not in terms of lyrical content. People say Nigerian movies like juju a lot. But in the real Nigerian environment, what happens? Do they not do juju? Whatever movie you watch is peculiar to its environment. Americans do not believe in juju. They believe in action. That’s their society. Come to Nigeria, it’s a different ball game. Juju is the in thing.

Same with music. What has happened is lyrics-wise, they’ve learnt from the West instead of learning from Nigerian artists where music was all about developing consciousness in the minds of people. Listen to music from 1970s and 1980s. ‘Ilu Le’ was recorded in 1973 by Victor Olaiya but is it not still relevant today?

Look at Ghana. No matter how hip hop you are, when you listen to Ghana music, you will know that it is from Ghana because they have not lost touch of Ghanaian highlife. And some of them are not as vulgar as Nigerian songs. They still have a culture that they fall back on. Listen to Congolese music. You cannot hear those hip hop things. How you convey the message is what matters. Like I told you earlier, ‘Mo fe mu’yan’ (Translation: I want to suck breast) by Victor Olaiya was vulgar back in the 1960s but it was only the elders that enjoyed it. It wasn’t for public consumption per se. But today, it’s a different case.

That’s probably the one Olaiya song that has survived the years. It is the one he remade with 2Baba. 

‘Omo Pupa’ and ‘Mr John Show Me the Way’ are there still. And because I initiated the concept for the remake I can tell you that ‘Baby Mi Da’ was not supposed to be the song with 2Baba.

We were to record ‘Omo Pupa’. One day I went to meet the MD of Spinlet. We said, “Look, why don’t we do Olaiya-2Face?” I said, “Fine.” He got in touch with Efe [Omoregbe, 2face’s manager] and Efe agreed. That was how we initiated that. We penned down ‘Omo Pupa’ to be done. And after two or three months trying to get them into the studio, they got the producer whose name I’ve forgotten. He did the beat, but wasn’t until we got to the studio for voicing that we realised that it was not ‘Omo Pupa’ that had been sequenced.

“What do we do? Dr Olaiya are you going to flow with this?” He said, “There’s no problem, we’re already here”. 2Baba? how far? He said he was already writing his lyrics. And in less than an hour they had voiced it. Everything was done and when that song came out I didn’t believe that it was the song. Because that wasn’t our intention. But somehow through providence, that came up and everybody was on point on the song.

A lot of our old music seems to be patronised by foreigners.

Maybe it’s a case of a prophet not being honoured in his own house. You go to Europe, UK, America and you see 20- to 30-year-old students studying African music. Studying Nigerian music. They want to know the intrigue. What made this music unique? What made this artist different? What was the percussion used? Why was it used? What gives it the flair of music it is? They want to learn. But unfortunately in Nigeria, it is not the case. Rather, we are pursuing Western music which we are not even getting properly. Because we are not copying them the right way. Even the people playing Western music are now coming to Africa.

We have a very big issue that has to do with the psyche of the people in power. By power, I mean the brands. Who is in charge of the brands? If you have somebody who is 25 to 30 years old, how do you tell such a person that a Ras Kimono, Blackky or Uwaifo is relevant when he might not have even listened to their song? You understand? To him it will not sell. He’d rather take a Davido.

Is that wrong?

In a way, it is wrong. In a way, it is not wrong. It is wrong in the sense that if you think that these younger ones who do not really have that brand message but are using their face to sell your market are the ones that will bring in the money, then you have a long-term problem. Because the same way those artists reign is the same way you’ll keep on paying new artists that will come in. Because they do not have lasting content. But when you take somebody that has content, that has character, that people can identify with, it is easier to sell your brand.

Many hit songs have been forced on you by the radio stations who collect money to play them. So you listen to this person and not in this older person. This means we have to continue recycling new artists. We have to continue listening to different artists. You go to America and the UK, Madonna is over 50 and she’s still touring, making serious money. Can we afford to have a Victor Uwaifo tour this nation and have a full stadium?

Is this about distribution?

We have distributors in Lagos and Onitsha and they still buy Osadebe, they buy Celestine Ukwu, they buy Rex Lawson. They buy all those old ones. From our research, it’s not 60-year-old people who buy those songs. It’s younger people. 

The system on the ground is not favourable to our veterans. Every year they go and bring some veteran from the US. Brian McKnight, Chaka Khan and the rest of them. Why can’t you bring an Evi Edna to same show to come and play? Two years ago, Blackky closed a show that Brandy and UB40 played. Nobody could meet his standard, even UB40 and Brandy. This wasn’t my judgement, but the judgement of the people who watched the show. So are we saying that we don’t have veterans who can be paid good money to come and perform? Why do we have to bring foreign veterans? Is it because they’re foreign?

Why did it have to take Idris Abdulkareem to fight for Nigerian artists before they could be recognised? If he did not have that fight with 50 Cent, Nigerian artists would not be given the privileges they have today. It took one man to change that whole scenario.