Celebrating the Success of Africa's Wealthiest Musicians

The Richest Musicians in Africa

The richest musicians in Africa have achieved their status through musical prowess, brand endorsements, business ventures, and other investments. Nigeria has many of the richest artists, a testament to its vibrant music industry. Youssou NDour, an accomplished Senegalese musician, is currently the wealthiest musician in Africa with an estimated net worth of $145 million. He is known for his distinctive voice and the spread of mbalax, a well-known Senegalese music genre.

The Rise of African Music

The music emanating out of Africa today is record-breaking in every sense. With the new sounds, there have been new pathways to success for African artists. These creators have taken everything from Amapiano to Afrobeats and told the African growth story, in decibels that have made the world sit up. Even as more Grammy Awards find a home on the continent, these top 20 musical artists are on track to deliver more. Together they say that the future of the African music industry is big, bright and bountiful.

Now, we wouldn't be surprised if Alexa actually said that, would we? The truth is that the African continent seems to be where all the action is when it comes to art and artistry at the moment, and everyone from Beyoncé to Usher to David Guetta want in.

When you think of African music, the thought of affiliating the continents industry with just American rock band Toto's 1982 classic "Africa" has long gone.

We are now seeing African artists take the global stage, literally, storming on to it with new music, introducing new sounds, genres, and energy, and educating the world on the true meaning of what being African is, without baggage, without the long-held views and regressive stereotypes.

The Most Influential Artists

Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) annual report, "Entertainment & Media Outlook 2019-2023", focuses on the media industry in some of Africa's biggest economies⁚ South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania. Alinah Motaung, PwC South Africa Entertainment, and Media Leader explains to FORBES AFRICA that it shows that there is a hunger for content, and continued advances in technology, new business models, and ways of creating value will drive the industry's growth for the next five years and beyond, especially in Africa.

However, there have been major shifts in the industry.

The common driving force behind these power shifts was the change in customer behavior propelled by newly-acquired habits and the impact of the pandemic, Motaung says. However asymmetric the pandemic's impacts on the entertainment and media industry, the forecast for revenues at an industry level remained robust For entertainment and media companies around the world, the past 18 months have been a period of remarkable uncertainty and challenge.

The well-known forces that were changing our world ⏤ digitization, globalization, disruption, shifting consumer habits and demographics ⸺ were amplified by a powerful new one, the first global pandemic in a century.

Nigerian Musicians

The report notes that digital music streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube) in all regions seems to be on an upward curve. In South Africa, revenues are set to increase at a 20.1 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to a total of R815 million (49.9 million) in 2023. Revenue in Nigeria is also set to rise by 17.5 million and in Kenya by 5.2 million.

No one African country is like the other and what we have seen, for instance, is that Nigeria is fiercely proud of the music that it exports, Phiona Okumu, Head of Music for sub-Saharan Africa at Spotify, says to FORBES AFRICA.

Afrobeats has grown significantly on Spotify. In South Africa, Amapiano started out as an underground genre where music was shared amongst artists and producers via applications such as WhatsApp. It has since become one of the most popular genres on the continent and has gained great momentum internationally.

Starting off in 2017, we saw South Africa leading the way in terms of digital music streaming revenue as compared to Kenya and Nigeria. 2020 then saw Nigeria's total streaming revenue beat that of South Africa and is forecasted to grow exponentially until 2026 with South Africa and Kenya continuing at a steady growth rate, Motaung adds.

Senegalese Musicians

In Tanzania and Ghana, there is still a big focus on recorded music which will contribute the respective countries' growth. In Ghana, recorded music is set to grow further with over 9.4 million in 2023. For Tanzania, the music market is expected to increase at a 6.9 CAGR over the next five years being worth 6 million in 2023.

Lwazi Mngoma, Creative Director and Entertainment Curator at OGO Creative, a strategy-driven agency with its heart in multi-scale live production, states that African music is once again at the epicenter of global music trends. OGO specializes in creative ideas, strategy, content creation, event production, and project management.

The captive audience garnered by Amapiano and Afrobeats during the Covid pandemic helped the two long-standing genres create new superstars and provide a sound that has influenced global stars like Chris Brown, Drake and even Beyoncé, Mngoma says. The seemingly African way of tying genres to dance moves has further increased the two genres' visibility and influence.

According to Motaung, social media has also played a significant role in promoting these increases that have been seen on digital streams especially.

The Future of African Music

Evidence of this is Master KG's global hit "Jerusalema" which now has more than 500 million views on YouTube.

PwC believes that the route "Jerusalema" took to worldwide popularity after its release in December 2019 is an example of the new pathways to success for African artists ⏤ using social media and new types of distribution platforms. Spotify is entering local African new markets, to help ensure that sounds and stories that once remained local can reach a global audience.

Platforms like TikTok are also changing the music industry. In October 2020, British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac reached several new milestones in their acclaimed rock career⁚ their song "Dreams" re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time since its 1977 release.

The track reached 8.47 million streams in one week, easily its highest weekly total of all time ⸺ without any promotional push. All it took was one man, a skateboard, a very large bottle of cranberry juice and a video of his morning commute uploaded to TikTok.

Social media and tech platforms are changing the way we consume music, Motaung further explains.

Tags: Africa, Music,

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