From Alaba to Algorithms: How Tech Changed Nigerian Music (Part I)

Once upon a time, Nigerian music came in a ‘nylon bag’.

If you grew up anywhere near a bus park or frequented major street corners, you probably remember him. The guy pushing a wheelbarrow or sitting in a kiosk full of neatly arranged CDs, each wrapped in paper packaging, blasting the latest DJ mix as he yelled prices into the air. 

It was in a place like this that I bought the first of my several copies of MI Abaga’s debut album— ‘Talk About It’. That was how many of us discovered new music. That, and our favorite shows on the radio and TV. Other times, it was through DJs at parties or, in rare cases, the gospel of a well-connected friend who knew the next big act before they ‘blew’.

These were the OG discovery, marketing, and distribution channels.

Alaba: The Real “OG Before IG”

If the early contemporary music industry in Nigeria were a religion, it would have had its fair share of intermediaries, priests, and gods. If DJs/mix-makers were intermediaries and OAPs the priests, then Alaba marketers were the gods of the industry.

The gods reigned supreme, and they all resided on the same stretch of the holy land, a pantheon if you like— Alaba International Market. Industry players simply referred to this pilgrimage site as Alaba. 

Originally an electronics market in Lagos, Alaba soon gained notoriety in music as a nerve centre made up of marketing and distribution giants who specialized in mass-producing and pushing out copies of music and film to every corner of the country.

At a time when the contemporary entertainment industry in Nigeria was still finding its feet, these Alaba establishments helped creators reach audiences far beyond what their marketing efforts could reach. They were simply pivotal to the spread of Nigerian music.

Over time, the people who ran these distribution outfits grew more powerful than the creators themselves. Alaba became the place where careers were made—or marred. If you were signed to a major label, you might get a fair deal. If not, you were at their mercy. And mercy wasn’t always part of their business model.

“Alaba could make a man out of you,” says music critic and journalist Emmanuel Daraloye, who has reviewed over a thousand albums. 

“They were that powerful. If they didn’t like your song, it simply wouldn’t spread.”

Dafe, a talent manager, put it this way, “If they wanted to cancel you, they’d cancel you. You could not bargain your way out of it.” 

Artiste Discovery and Distribution: The Rise of The Gatekeepers

The early contemporary music scene in Nigeria was rife with gatekeepers. It made talent discovery a bit difficult to navigate. Alaba was the most important bloc, no doubt.

But the DJs and the OAPs were the gatekeepers most upcoming artistes got to interact with on a personal level. Artistes would go to them with their demos and beg (sometimes pay) to get their music on air.

These interactions were mainly physical. They were the most important aspect of talent discovery at the time, according to Fanii, an A&R, music executive, and manager of Nigerian rap legend, M.I Abaga.

“You find artistes going to bars and lounges, begging to perform for five minutes,” continues Fanii, who is also Head of Music at TASCK, a creatives-focused tech startup founded by MI Abaga. 

She reveals that A&Rs looking for fresh voices also had to be friends with DJs. “A&Rs used to speak to DJs, say, who are you jamming to right now?” The DJs were important because of their local spread and proximity to the radio.

Fanii tells me, “The radio was also a very good space to discover artists. I worked at a radio station for two years and discovered several new artists through that medium.”

Many OG artistes in Nigerian music today have stories of being left with eggs on their faces after meeting a popular OAP or a DJ who refused to play or demanded money to play their music. This practice is famously known as ‘Payola’.

Some have stories of being denied the chance to showcase their talents by organizers at music festivals and concerts.

Until the dawn of the new era, these were all but considered a rite of passage on the journey to stardom. No doubt, it was a difficult era for undiscovered artistes. 

Mainstream internet access changed that. 

The ‘Blog Era’ of Nigerian Music

“10 years ago, people were not really streaming, brother. People were doing… they call it the blog era”, Emmanuel Daraloye tells me. “The blog era was in the 2010s. NotJustOK, 2Exclusive, NaijaLoaded… those were the popping sites that spearheaded the era.”

This “blog era”, as he calls it, was the beginning of the end of the Alaba hegemony in Nigerian music. But it didn’t seem that way immediately. The revolution began when music fans gained access to internet-enabled phones and mobile internet subscriptions. 

Music fans in the current era wouldn’t believe it, but 10MB was N100 at the time. Admittedly, it pales in comparison to even the smallest internet plans available to consumers today, but music fans did wonders with it.

I spoke with Temz about this era. Temz is a huge music enthusiast and a Twitter micro-influencer. He reminisced about the shift from consuming music via lyrics books, VHS, and then CDs to now downloading music from blogs. 

“We started having Java and Symbian phones, and the Waptrick era commenced. We were downloading music with phones that needed memory cards to take more than 10 songs at once. It was fun, it was fun…. those were the good old days, man”, he recollects with relish.

“We started having Java and Symbian phones, and the Waptrick era commenced. We were downloading music with phones that needed memory cards to take more than 10 songs at once. It was fun, it was fun…. those were the good old days, man.”

Although the blog era helped democratize the discovery and distribution space, unfortunately, it didn’t have the best interests of creators at heart. Blogs helped put their voices and faces out there, but monetization (for the creators) was almost nonexistent.  There was simply no structure for it.

Mainly, it was the smaller artists who embraced blogs. It was a cheaper and less degrading road to market. The intermediaries, priests, and gods were largely cut out.

As an upcomer, why grovel before an OAP when you could just get your music uploaded on NotJustOK.com with some cash and less stress?

Additionally, there was the analytics advantage. Blog artistes could now go to labels with some leverage, showing their download numbers. This helped some get record deals.

As it turned out, this practice was a precursor to the current model of getting record deals by using digital numbers for leverage.

However…

For the more established acts and the record labels who already had to face the menace of traditional piracy, these blogs were hurting business. Albums were getting leaked on the internet before official release, rendering the printed copies useless.

Physical CDs were no longer selling because people could now play the music on their handheld devices. You no longer needed NEPA’s permission to enjoy music. It was a music consumer’s heaven.

Essentially, it was a tale of three divides. The blog owners were smiling to the bank, the fans got free music, while Alaba and the artistes were left to rue the effects of digital piracy on their bank accounts.

At the time, the internet was a relatively new feature in the Nigerian music industry, and there were few coherent laws and policies governing what could and could not be done. And thus, the blogs thrived for a while.

On the positive side, the Alaba hold on the industry was beginning to wane. Cracks were beginning to show. The foundations for a divorce had been set in motion by the blogs.

At this point, it was obvious to keen industry watchers that the future would revolve around internet subscriptions and mobile phones, but the final nail in the coffin would be innovation that also allowed creators to thrive and earn from their art. What would it be?

At the time, not many casuals could tell for sure.

Streaming Era: The Age of the Algorithm

But blogs couldn’t rule forever. With the opposition it got from industry insiders in Nigerian music, it was clear that it wouldn’t survive for long. A shift began to take shape with the rise of Digital Streaming Platforms (DSPs), which offered a new way to access and distribute music.

I asked music journalist Emmanuel Daraloye when he first noticed the transition.

“I started noticing the streaming era around 2018 or 2019. That was when artistes began moving their music from blogs to streaming platforms.

Was it 2021? Yes, 2021 or 2022—Spotify came to Nigeria.”

Spotify officially launched in Nigeria in 2021, and while they were not the first DSP in the market, their arrival is widely regarded as the definitive start of Nigeria’s full transition into the streaming era.

Before Spotify, there were:

• SoundCloud (2008)

• Deezer (2011)

• Boomplay (2015)

• Apple Music (2015)

• YouTube Music (2020)

• AudioMack (2020)

First, iTunes and later Apple Music had the potential to be the dominant DSP, but limited accessibility held both Apple products back. At the time, iTunes was restricted to Apple iOS devices that were not commonly used by most Nigerians.

However, iTunes played a key role in helping Nigerian artistes connect with the diaspora, which became crucial to Afrobeats’ global expansion. The iTunes chart also became the first digital vanity metric for Nigerian artistes—a way to measure the success of a new release, at least symbolically.

Other platforms like Deezer and SoundCloud had web-based offerings, but weren’t widely adopted. They didn’t work well on the Java-based mobile phones common at the time, which relied on browsers like Opera Mini or UC Web.

Sure, these services would appear in search results when users search for music, but not enough Nigerian internet users stuck around to engage.

The SoundCloud Rebellion

It’s impossible to tell the story of Nigeria’s music evolution without SoundCloud. The platform was a lifeline for independent artists seeking a niche audience, especially in rap, hip-hop, and the alté scenes. 

When these communities got tired of Alaba distribution and were shut out of traditional systems, they turned to SoundCloud for visibility.

“Odunsi and the alté guys couldn’t fit into that [mainstream] system,” Emmanuel Daraloye says.

“And they felt they could do it on their own. To be fair to them, they tried.”

Boomplay and AudioMack were the first two DSPs to achieve mass adoption in Nigeria. Boomplay was launched in 2015 by Tecno, Nigeria’s first widely adopted Android smartphone.

It was a smart strategy by Transsion Holdings, but the market was not yet ripe. The average consumer’s attitude towards streaming music was still that of an unnecessary expense. 

This was largely because they could still download music onto their mobile devices from blogs and subsequently play it without attracting additional internet charges from their provider.

It also did not help that Boomplay only focused on African music until 2018, when it reached an agreement with Universal Music Group to distribute content from Universal’s music labels. 

Five years later, AudioMack launched. It was during the COVID lockdowns, when people were stuck at home and looking for new music experiences. At this point, the attitude towards streaming had changed, and data costs were more affordable. But it wasn’t perfect.

Most of Audiomack’s app users in Africa were on the freemium option, and ad revenues alone weren’t enough to pay artistes as much as they would have loved.

Artists complained about low royalties. Listeners complained about poor sound quality, intrusive ads, and a weak recommendation algorithm.

So when Spotify and YouTube Music finally entered the Nigerian music scene with significantly better user experience, it was easy for Nigerian consumers to migrate, bringing the streaming era into full swing. A well-researched offering plus a ready market equalled product-market fit.

What Streaming Meant for Nigerian Music Industry Stakeholders

The year was 2018. Nigeria’s king of ballads, ‘Dwin, The Stoic’, then as part of the duo called ‘Ignis Brothers’, had just released an album titled ‘Heavy Heart‘. Alongside publishing it on DSPs, he also printed physical CDs—but only a few people bought them.

“At that point, CDs were already getting phased out,” says Dwin, who also runs St. Claire Records.

That moment forced him to fully embrace the new realities of music distribution.

For Fafore Taiwo, an emerging voice in Nigerian gospel music, the streaming era has brought with it a new incentive: understanding the business side of music.

“Gospel music ministers are now getting to know the business aspect of music, away from just performing in churches.

Before, we relied mainly on selling CDs and ministering at churches and faith-based events.”

Based in Ibadan, Taiwo says streaming now allows gospel acts to earn sustainably from their ministries.

“When they record music and put it on streaming platforms, with some marketing, they can gain listenership and earn royalties—and it’s for a lifetime.”

Nigerian Music Producers Finally Get Their Share

The streaming era has also given producers a new lease of life—and a chance to earn royalties as co-creators.

In the past, producers were often paid just once for a track, even if the song went on to earn millions.

“The best thing,” says Abimbola, a music producer, “is that streaming platforms now allow you to earn for a lifetime.”

He adds that this change is especially important in a time when old songs can randomly resurface and go viral again.

“We’ve recently seen some old songs come back to life. I think it was in 2020 that we had [Paul Anka’s  1958 classic] ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder’. It was an old song, but it blew up again.

More recently, we had Mike Ejeagha’s ‘Gwo Gwo Ngwo’. These songs find new life, and streaming ensures producers benefit from that.”

(Note: Mike Ejeagha was still alive at the time of this interview but has since passed away)

For A&Rs and Talent Managers, The Game Has Changed

Streaming also reshaped the way executives, A&Rs, and talent managers discover artists.

Fanii says A&Rs once had to travel the country, attending shows to scout talent. But that’s changed.

“How many A&Rs want to go through that stress when Instagram ads can bring artists to me? Because really, that’s what it is now.”

Today, execs mostly focus on data: monthly Spotify listeners, total stream counts, and follower growth.

But for Dafe, a talent manager, it’s different.

“I don’t really look at numbers or data. I look at performance. Does the artist have potential? If they’re willing to improve and grow until a wide audience sees the art as valuable, then I’ll stick with them, regardless of their current numbers.”

He adds:

“Numbers, for me, are all about marketing and sales. I leave that to the people who are focused on that side of the business.”

For someone like Fanii, who wears both A&R and executive hats, the push and pull is constant.

“The A&R in me is drawn to talent. Raw potential. But the exec in me? She’s looking at the numbers. Because music, at the end of the day, is a business.”

Back then,” Fanii says, “you could look at how talented you were or how many people showed up to your shows. That was your metric. Now it’s all about data. And it’s both a problem and a solution.”

And business means investment. ROI. Risk assessment.

“I want to know what you’ve done for yourself before I put money in. Like, okay—you’ve had $10, what did you do with it? You pushed a song? Got it on some playlists? Got booked on your own? Cool. Now I know maybe with $8,000, you’ll do something even bigger. That’s how I justify investing $100,000.”

It sounds cold, but it’s the reality artists are navigating today, especially as the industry recovers from years of overpaid advances and unrecouped investments.

“The labels are still trying to get their money back from deals they signed 10, 15 years ago. That’s why the criteria are so tough now. You need a crazy number of streams, or you need someone who just believes in you enough to back you regardless.”

For Fans, Streaming Took Getting Used To

For the average Nigerian music fan, streaming took time to understand. Temz, an influencer, remembers his first brush with streaming platforms.

“SoundCloud and Last.fm—those were the first streaming sites I came across. I didn’t understand what they were doing at first.

Why should I pay $2 to download a song when I could get it for free on NaijaLoaded?

If you had told me back then that I’d one day pay a monthly fee to access music, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

One of the biggest shifts streaming caused, says Yinka Aiki, a film director and music lover, is how fans discover new music.

“I used to find artistes through word of mouth, TV, blogs, features, articles, even award shows.

But for about two years now, every new artist I’ve discovered has been from my Spotify shuffle.”

Gatekeeping In The Algorithm Era

With the ghosts of Alaba’s gatekeepers laid to rest, one would assume today’s artistes have a straight path to market—one free of gatekeepers. Culture critic Emmanuel Daraloye disagrees.

“Let’s not deceive ourselves,” he says. “For every era, there will be gatekeepers. What artistes need to do is find a way around them.”

He elaborates:

“Gatekeepers now come in many forms. For every space, there are gatekeepers. Are record labels like Universal and Sony not gatekeepers? Social media influencers are gatekeepers, brother. 

The fans follow whatever they say. And most of them are on payroll. Reviewers and music journalists like me can shape how the public perceives an album with just one review. We are gatekeepers. 

They might not be as toxic as the Alaba era, but they are gatekeepers nonetheless.”

Dwin The Stoic shares this view.

“I think we merely switched gatekeepers. For most industries, there’s still a sense of gatekeeping. But who holds that power and how they choose to use it has changed.”

He points to new centers of influence to buttress his opinion:

“The big accounts on Instagram, radio stations, to some degree—radio still has some power. But the beauty of the current era is that it’s a bit more democratised. I

personally, as an artist, am a testament to not paying attention to any gatekeepers. I’ve stayed within my community and focused on the music.”

For Dwin, the shift means emerging artistes have a real shot.

“Ultimately, for most artists trying to break into the mainstream—yes, those people still exist. But thankfully, the power of the gatekeeper has been watered down by the democracy of the internet.”

However, as a talent manager, Dafe pushes back against the idea that gatekeeping simply changed hands. He argues that the model has fractured entirely.

“Back then… distributors had all-encompassing power. For promotions, artists would hustle to get DJs to put their songs in compilations, like DJ Superstar.

You’d see P-Square on the first track, then one or two unknown artists would sneak in. It was all about getting into the good books. That was how many artists popped.”

He cites Timaya as one artist who rose through such means.

But today, he says, things are different.

“These days, you can start a playlist as a fan or consumer and say, ‘Okay, guys, listen to my playlist,’ then put the artists you like on there.”

For Dafe, this shift in power dynamics signals a bigger transformation.

“When you can have this much fan-driven influence, then gatekeeping is not as streamlined as it once was.”

(The tech revolution was just the beginning. In the second part of this article, we’ll follow its ripple effects—how it shot new platforms and channels to prominence, redefined virality, rewired artiste development, and shaped the future of Nigerian music. Read Part II here.)