How To Get Big As An Upcoming Artist In Nigeria.

In this article, I will try as much as possible to reveal to you, how to get big as an upcoming artist in Nigeria.

As a matter of fact, considering the population of Nigeria estimated at almost 300 million; it is therefore certain that the Nigerian music industry is big enough to accommodate any upcoming artist.

But the truth of the matter is that nobody is going to build the space for you. In other words, it’s on you to build a space that will accommodate you in the vast Nigerian music industry.

And of course, that space must be big enough if you really want to get big as an artist in the Nigerian music industry.

How to get big as an upcoming artist in Nigeria.

To get big as an upcoming artist in the Nigerian music industry, you must possess the following:

1. Be musically talented.
2. Have money to fund your musical career.
3. Get a famous music producer to produce your songs.
4. Collaborate with established artists.
5. Harness the power of influencer marketing on social media.
6. Shoot a dope music video.
7. Promote your music.
8. Get press coverage.

1. Be musically talented.

The very first step towards overcoming the challenges and getting big as an upcoming artist in the Nigerian music industry is to ensure you are musically talented.

You don’t have to sing every kind of music to be talented. Because there are artists who can rap and not sing, and there are also ones that can sing and not rap.

The point is to dig out what musical genre you are naturally good at and stick with it.

If you can sing rock and roll, then you have to make that your pursuit in the Nigerian music industry.

One mistake you will make when jumpstarting your musical career is mixing up genres. For instance, trying to sing and rap at the same time.

It will only make you end up as a Jack of all trades but a master of none.

Moreover, music fans always have their own preferences. And most of them do not listen to music that’s mixed up with diverse genres.

And if you ask me the music genre that’s making waves in Nigeria, AfroBeats/AfroPop is the answer.

But this does not mean you should force yourself to do AfroBeats if you’re not talented in it.

Now let’s see how you can get to know if you’re musically talented.

How to know if you are musically talented.

To know if you are musically talented, record at least a demo of yourself singing or rapping. You can do so on a phone app with a downloaded beat.

Now play this demo to your family members and friends, and ask them to rate your music.

You can then use the feedback you get to determine if you are musically talented.

Be mindful of the fact that some people will criticize or make fun of it. But whatever the case is, you will get honest feedback from those who are serious and real.

You can also reach out to music industry experts and professionals and get them to review your music and let you know if you are good to go as an artist.

2. Have money to fund your musical career.

One thing I’ve discovered in my whole career as a music advisor and promoter is that upcoming artists are struggling to become successful without being willing to spend money.

And am always straight with the fact that, there is no way you can ever get big as an artist in the Nigerian music industry without spending money.

The 2 areas you are going to spend the most on are your music production and promotion.

And if you dare bust these 2 most important aspects of the music business, then you are never going to go anywhere in the Nigerian music industry.

Now let’s quickly see how you can raise money to start and fund your musical career.

How to raise money to fund your musical career.

There are so many ways of raising money to fund your music career, but we are going to look at a few of those.

1. Ask family members and friends to support you. Before you ask family members and friends to support you, you must at least give them proof that you are not trying to collect and waste their money. Thus you need at least a demo as I said earlier that you are going to present to them as proof. Or you can as well organize a very small show in a bar or pub and call it a fundraiser. Print IVs and on that day display your musical talent and afterward let your MC call on them to come out and tender their financial support.
2. Another way you can raise money to fund your musical career is to find a sponsor. There are rich people everywhere who are looking for talented artists who can invest their money and get a return on their investments. You just need to go out there and find them.
3. You can also get a paid job or hustle to make the money that will enable you to fund your music career. There are scores of ‘work-from-home jobs and ‘passive income sources you can use to raise money in this digital age. All you need to do is rise up and search online for how to get started.

3. Get a famous music producer to produce your songs.

Getting a famous music producer to produce your songs is a surefire way to get big as an artist in the Nigerian music industry.

However, getting a famous music producer on your song is going to be very expensive.

And this is one of the reasons why having money to fund your music career is one of our points on how you can get big as an artist in the Nigerian music industry.

Now let’s briefly look at some of the benefits of getting a famous music producer to produce your songs.

Benefits of getting a famous music producer to produce your songs.

Below are some of the benefits of having a famous music producer on your songs.

1. Right song composition. A famous music producer will help to arrange your songs in the standard format, In case you didn’t get it right.
2. High-quality sound production. It is only a famous music producer that will use his skills and experience to give you a high-quality sound production that will make your music meet up the standard.
3. Networking and connections. A famous music producer will help to connect you with established artists, music promoters, marketers, record label executives, etc. And that is capable of blowing your music career real fast.

4. Collaborate with established artists.

Collaborating with established artists will help you to get big as an artist in the Nigerian music industry.

Again, this is a very expensive process as established artists in Nigeria are known to charge upcoming artists so high for a collaboration.

But this shouldn’t be a pain in the ass because we pointed out earlier that you need to have money to fund your music career if you want to get big as an upcoming artist in Nigeria.

Benefits of collaborating with established artists.

There are so many benefits of collaborating with established artists, and some of them are:

1. Collaborating with established artists will help you tap into their fanbase because people who wouldn’t have listened to your music will do so because you featured their favorite artist in your song. As a matter of fact, they will always listen to you again and again. And that’s how you gain fans.
2. Music promoters, record label executives, marketers, etc will pay more attention to you once they realized that you featured an established artist on your song.
3. You will avail yourself of the opportunity to mingle and connect with those working with the established artist. And that could be an avenue for you to land an endorsement or deal.
4. You are also going to have an opportunity of performing in big shows alongside the established artist you featured or collaborated with.

5. Harness the power of influencer marketing on social media.

Influencer marketing is currently the most powerful and effective form of marketing on social media platforms.

It is the means by which social media users with thousands, maybe millions of followers are paid to publish a post about a product or service on their social media platforms.

You could take your music as a product and reach out to a social media influencer to post it for you.

The post is going to have a link that will enable interested followers to follow through to download your song.

This in turn will help to speed up the growth of your fanbase and help you get big in the Nigerian music industry.

Why influencer marketing is very effective.

1. Trust and loyalty. Influencer marketing is very effective because the social media influencer followers trust them so much that they would opt for whatever they recommend.
2. Celebrity status. Scores of social media influencers are celebrities. And their status in society is more than enough to make people like what they like.

6. Shoot a dope music video.

When I was young, I used to think that it is the artists that own all the cars, houses, girls, etc they use in their music videos.

And because of that, I will respect that artist so much and that will compel me to play their music over and over again.

There are so many people who are living and will continue to live in this mentality.

Therefore, you have to get through to them with your music video to get big in the Nigerian music industry.

Music videos are one of the things that help upcoming artists get big and blow in Nigeria.

One of the reasons this is so is that your music video will be played on cable channels that have millions of daily viewers.

And if those viewers fall in love with your song, they will be looking it up online which will help to increase your streams and downloads.

This then takes us to the final point which is to promote your music.

7. Promote your music.

Now that you have a high-quality audio production and dope music video, you need to get a lot of people to play it in order to get big in the Nigerian music industry.

There are lots of ways to promote your music, both online and offline. Influencer marketing that we treated as a topic earlier is also a form of music promotion.

But before we draw a conclusion on this article, let’s briefly touch on some effective ways you can promote your music, both online and offline.

Effective ways to promote your music.

1. Music blogs. You can upload your music to as many music blogs as possible as a means of promoting it. One of the benefits of uploading your music on music blogs is that it will be optimized on search engines where people can get to find and listen to or download it organically.
2. Radio/TV promo. Lots of upcoming artists are neglecting this means of music promotion because they think the internet has completely swallowed offline music promotion. But when you research the number of people without Android phones; plus the grandpas, grandmas, bus drivers, etc who don’t depend on mobile phones to listen to music. You will get the understanding that this kind of music promotion still works.

8. Get press coverage.

As your music career begins to grow, you need people to spread it around like wildfire.

And one of the ways, or say the quickest way of doing so is through press coverage.

What is press coverage?

Press coverage is the process where media houses or platforms write about the story or what’s going on in the life of an individual.

How to get press coverage as an artist.

To get press coverage as an artist, you need to source popular news media blogs in Nigeria.

When you find them, visit their contact page to gather the necessary contact details like phone number, and email, or even use the contact form displayed on their website

You can then call, email, or message them that you need press coverage on their blog.

Remember to send a preview of the tour song.

You will then know where to start from their reply.

Good luck!