External: Syndicated from Phylis Atieno, ecosystem builder and writer on tech and innovation across Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest growing music market in the world in 2024. Recorded music revenues rose 22.6 percent to reach $110 million, nearly five times the global average growth rate of 4.8 percent. Afrobeats, Amapiano, and regional genres are gaining traction both domestically and internationally. Read External//Medium
Despite this growth, Africa accounts for approximately 1 to 2 percent of global recorded music revenues. The gap between consumption and compensation stems from structural failures in royalty collection and distribution systems.
An estimated 30 percent of music royalties generated globally never reach rights holders due to missing data and administrative failures. In Africa, where collection infrastructure is less developed and underfunded, that percentage is believed to be higher.
A single song generates up to six distinct revenue streams. Each stream follows separate rules, is managed by different organizations, and flows through independent collection systems. These streams include mechanical royalties, master recording royalties, performance royalties, sync licensing fees, neighboring rights payments, and print rights.
In well functioning markets, each revenue stream is tracked across borders and paid to the appropriate rights holders. In most African markets, artists typically receive some version of mechanical and master royalties from streaming platforms while other streams go uncollected.
Performance royalties often remain unclaimed. Sync licensing opportunities are frequently missed. Neighboring rights are largely inaccessible to most African artists.
An Afrobeats artist whose song plays on European radio, appears in a Netflix series, and generates millions of streams could theoretically collect royalties from multiple countries through several rights organizations. In practice, most collect from only one source.
Metadata fragmentation represents the first major failure point. Royalty payments depend on matching a sound recording to its owner through metadata attached to songs upon upload.
This includes titles, songwriter information, percentage splits, and unique identifiers such as ISRC and ISWC codes. When metadata is incomplete or incorrect, royalties cannot be matched and enter black box funds held by collecting societies. Global black box funds are estimated to exceed $2.5 billion at any given time.
Collecting society disparity constitutes the second failure. Africa has over 32 CMOs affiliated with CISAC, the global network of authors’ societies. According to CISAC’s 2025 report, total African CMO collections reached €90 million, just 0.7 percent of global collections.
Many organizations rely on outdated monitoring technology, maintain weak reciprocal agreements with foreign CMOs, and have historically prioritized overheads over artist distributions. South Africa’s SAMRO recently distributed R22 million in previously unclaimed royalties after updating members’ banking details, illustrating how much revenue remains trapped due to process failures.
Sync licensing invisibility forms the third failure. Sync placements in film, television, advertising, and gaming represent lucrative royalty streams globally. With streaming platforms producing substantial content, demand for music is high. However, infrastructure linking African music catalogs to these buyers remains underdeveloped.
Rights ownership is often undocumented. Standardized licensing portals are absent. When music supervisors cannot quickly confirm ownership or secure clean licenses, they move to other options, allowing sync revenue to bypass African artists.
Africa’s music industry is projected to be worth over $10 billion by 2030, driven by streaming growth, diaspora audiences, and the global rise of Afrobeats and Amapiano.
South Africa currently accounts for approximately 75 percent of regional music revenues. Nigeria’s entertainment and media market grew 11.2 percent in 2024. Ghana is also building industry momentum. The Sub-Saharan African entertainment market is projected to grow at approximately 7 percent CAGR through 2029, with Nigeria approaching 8 percent.
The opportunity extends beyond the $110 million in streaming revenue. Tens of millions leak from the system annually, creating space for platforms that can capture and redirect those funds.
AI powered royalty recovery represents one emerging solution. Companies are using machine learning to scan streaming platforms, radio and TV monitoring databases, and sync registries to identify uncollected royalties, fix errors, and claim owed money. Paris based Claimy operates in this space globally. In Africa, where the gap between royalties earned and paid is largest, competition remains limited.
Blockchain and tokenized IP applications are also developing. In 2023, Nigerian blockchain startup TrendX partnered with The Nollywood Factory to tokenize IP rights of an upcoming film, allowing African retail investors worldwide to buy fractional stakes. The model demonstrated that African creative IP can be structured on chain and opened to distributed investment.
Sync infrastructure platforms are addressing the logistics gap between African creators and global buyers. Songtradr built a B2B music licensing marketplace that by 2019 represented 400,000 artists across 190 countries.
SyncAll, launched in 2025, is an African built platform aggregating rights cleared catalogues, enriching them with cultural metadata, and connecting them to global sync buyers through a streamlined quotation request model.
Major industry players have begun investing in African music infrastructure. Universal Music Group took a majority investment in Nigeria’s Mavin Global label in 2024.
The International Finance Corporation and Sony jointly invested in early stage African creative startups including Anka and Filmmakers Mart. Afreximbank doubled its CANEX fund to $1 billion, signaling institutional recognition of the creative sector’s economic potential.
Smaller companies have demonstrated viable infrastructure models. Africori built a rights management and distribution platform signing over 7,000 artists. The company’s infrastructure supported Master KG’s Jerusalema reaching 435 million Spotify streams and led to acquisition by Warner Music.
Highvibes scaled from handling 8,000 songs manually to nearly 60,000 tracks after adopting proper rights management systems, paying over £200,000 to artists with full transparency.
Lagos based AfroSoundtrack built a publishing administration business recovering royalties for over 50 African artists who had never received payments from mechanical rights, performance rights, or sync fees.
Why we need platforms built by us; AI powered royalty auditing and recovery platforms targeting Africa would operate in a market with higher leakage, lower baseline collection, and no competitor at scale.
Music rights metadata and registration tools that guide artists through registration at release, enforce correct splits, generate identifiers, and send data to platforms and societies could address the registration gap that often costs artists more than piracy.
African sync licensing marketplaces could tap into the global sync market projected to reach $12 billion by 2033. CMO technology partnerships providing AI tools to flag errors in royalty reporting could boost collections across the continent.
Tokenized IP and royalty financing platforms could give artists access to advances against future royalties. Creator education and legal access tools addressing the knowledge gap around rights and royalties would create an informed artist base as foundation for other solutions.
Traditional venture due diligence assumes mature payment systems and clear IP ownership, conditions that do not consistently exist in African music markets.
The Recovery Rate, measuring share of royalties actually delivered to artists, represents a key metric. Platforms claiming to collect African diaspora royalties should demonstrate not just what they collect but what gets paid out compared to what was owed.
IP vetting is essential before funding catalogue based platforms. Investors need proof of clean ownership via audit trails or blockchain records. Revenue projections should be conservative and spread across streaming, sync, and performance royalties. Co investing with local creative funds such as HEVA Fund and Growth Africa can reduce risk by leveraging existing relationships with artists, labels, and CMOs.
African rights platforms must enforce complete, global standard metadata at upload including ISRC codes, ISWC codes, songwriter splits, and territory rights.
Metadata enables faster licensing, reduces disputes, and gives IP financial value. Songs should be registered internationally from the start so diaspora streams automatically generate payments. Business models should lean toward marketplace structures allowing media buyers to license African music directly.
A Universal Registration Window, a time limited program funded by Afreximbank or AfCFTA, could let African creatives register their IP internationally through a single streamlined process, protecting rights in major markets before disputes arise.
Mandatory CMO transparency requiring collecting societies to publish detailed royalty distributions with penalties for missing or late payments could rebuild artist trust.
