I don’t know if I still qualify to be here, at The Headies. I used to work fully in entertainment but I’ve crossed to the other side. I’m still very interested in show business and entertainment. I used to be a music journalist for those who don’t know me and I am the convener of NECLive; the only still-existing conference in this part of the world focused on the creative industry.
The Headies team came to interview me a few days ago. I’m just going to repeat what I said to them. I’ve been in this industry since 1997/98 so I’ve been around for a minute. I met the likes of Fame Music Awards and Nigerian Music Awards, and most people at this event may not know these awards; apart from the OGs here, Kunle Afolayan, YBO, Kelechi, and so on. Those of us who started quite young know the NMA, The Movie Awards (THEMA), and The Reel Awards.
We knew all of them and today, they don’t exist anymore.
If you leave the award scene and go back to the record labels and film companies, most if not all the things we had 20-30 years ago no longer exist. However, if you go to the USA and you check the Grammys, the Oscars and all the institutions they have. From the commercial ones to the non-commercial ones, I think there’s something we’re not doing right.
In the corporate sector, we’ve gotten it right to a very large extent. Look at the banks for instance. The banks we’ve known for the past 15 to 20 years are still standing today. We have strong banks that are getting stronger. Same thing in the media. THISDAY celebrated 30 years, in Lagos just last night.
My concern is that it seems we look at some properties in this industry like “it’s Ayo Animashaun’s hustle,” “it’s Kunle Afolayan’s hustle” or “it’s Funke Akindele hustle”. It seems like we’re competing with each other when we should be working together to build what stands a chance to be one of the most formidable industries in the world.
A few weeks ago, I watched the new film that was made for Bob Marley, it’s called Bob Marley One Love. Watch it. When I was growing up, Reggae was global and we thought it was going to take over the world. It didn’t. Let’s not think what’s happening with Nollywood or with music is going to be around forever.
Whether it stays forever, becomes mainstream or brings back money and development to Lagos, Abuja, and all of Nigeria depends on us. It depends on us, on most of us in this room today and those who are not here but would watch this.
See, Hollywood would extract the value that it sees. They would extract entertainment value, extract licenses and all of that. But how do we begin to think that we need to come together and institutionalize what we have and rally around ourselves to support it for growth and success?
Otherwise, in the next 10 years, there won’t be Headies. Trust me, we worked with Viacom now Paramount, they are our very good friends and former clients. The MTV Africa Movie Awards (MAMA) has not been held in so many years. They want to do MAMA but if it’s not making business sense, it’s not going to happen.
So we have had these properties; The Headies for 17 years. I mean, The Headies is not perfect and we look at things abroad and afar and we think it’s perfect. That’s not true. I’ve been to almost all the events around the world and they have their own issues, so how could we potentially work to make sure The Headies gets better?
I want to have 10 or 15 of The Headies, 10 or 20 of NECLive, 10 people like Kemi Adetiba, Kunle Afolayan, and so on. We don’t have enough and we’re all poor. It’s a poor industry, and forget what you see online, everybody is struggling.
My task to Ayo Animashaun, who I’ve been privileged to know since 1998, is that he needs to institutionalize the Headies in such a way that it’s not the Ayo Animashaun show and I know he’s working on it. He has work to do and the team has its work to do.
But if you’re a talent in this industry, a blogger, an executive, a journalist, etc and you’re still looking at The Headies as the ‘Ayo Animashaun’ show then you’re doing yourself. We are doing ourselves. We need 20 of such platforms. We have such a huge promise that we can make the world dance, we can make the world watch, and we extract value for it.
When you trend on TikTok and Twitter, it means nothing. Stop counting engagement and likes, they mean nothing, They’re called vanity metrics for a reason. What does it bring back to you? What kind of companies are we building? The guys that gave us the hits of the past 20 years. All those companies are gone.
I’m very worried because if we’re not careful, everybody gets value now and in five years we’re contributing money again to one artiste who is sick. So I just want to say that we have a huge opportunity to build our own brands and platforms across the entire value chain.
So whether the Headies happen in America or in China or in the US. I really don’t care. But I want to see all the awards, the journals, the platforms, the businesses. At the end of the day, maybe our music scene will be around for the next 20 to 30 years. Our films are still struggling to cross over. We are big and everybody is getting value but it seems as if we’ve gotten carried away.
This is day one. This is morning.
This is a case study, the Headies. It’s going to happen this year and most likely back in Nigeria. I want to see all of us work together with the organizers and support them to succeed beyond their imagination. And if tomorrow, the AMVCA comes, or somebody else is doing something like this, I want us to work together.
In conclusion, the skit makers do it very well. I’m jealous. When Nasboi is doing something, you see everyone is in it. They do it so well, almost as if they camp in a place and they say whose turn it is now.
We need to take a step back, find a way to build systems and structures around the properties that we have and work together to ensure that, we can monétise them and can keep them going even after we have died.
Otherwise, it’s just a waste of everybody’s time.
