Breaking into the entertainment industry is an exciting yet challenging journey. For many aspiring artists, the question of when to hire a talent manager often arises. In this Creative Culture Interview, Oluchi Igbo and Marv Ekenna guide emerging artists on essential steps before seeking professional management.
Mide—Many artists are looking for talent managers to guide their path. Are there steps upcoming artists should take before involving a talent manager?
Marv Ekenna – The question should be why do I need a manager?
You need to assess and evaluate yourself before bringing somebody on board and trying to sell them your vision.
Before I answer the question, I would like to address who is a manager and what they do for you as a brand.
A manager is someone who represents you, handles your business, deals with your business, helps you with strategies, and makes business decisions for your career growth.
Your manager is not your social media manager or content creator.
Your manager is not your PA, he/she doesn’t pick up the laundry for you and is not your investor.
A lot of people mistake a manager for being an angel investor, once they have a manager, they believe that money is about to come.
As an artist, you should only involve a manager when there is money involved. You can’t call someone to manage something when there is nothing there to manage.
You need to have something worth representing before you can find someone who will dedicate their life to your artistic career.
If you do not have a proper system for a manager to represent, you will end up frustrating each other without achieving results.
There are a lot of things an artist needs to do before they require the service of a manager.
Mide – one of the things that struck me is when you said artists have to build their music career as a business before finding a manager cause if they don’t take it as a business there would be nothing to manage.
Could you please tell us what happens at NextUP World?
NextUP World is a platform for creatives. We help discover, push, and amplify.
We have the talent management side of it where we offer label services to labels. We help you with your rollout strategies, build a marketing strategy for you, and help you with your promotions.
There is a creative agency side of it where we work with brands and event producers and we have a booking agency side of it where we help put talents on events across the world.
Mide – Thank you, sir!
Mide turns to speak with Oluchi Igbo
Mide – you are a creative visionary and industry expert with over 10 years of experience, which means you’ve seen it all. My question is for most people who know the creative part of the music industry but don’t know the business part, what would you say to them?
Oluchi Igbo – this business part is deep. Many artists will bring out small money, pay one or two radio stations, and feel that because they have a good voice their music will blow. But it’s not like that.
Wizkid and Davido
Let me use Wizkid and Davido as examples, Davido would release his songs and go from one radio station to another, one TV station to another, paying for the promotion of the songs.
As he pays for those promotions, he settles everybody in the office down to the security at the gate. And you tell me that they will forget to play his song?
He puts in effort and spends money on his music, he is taking it as a business. He is on his A game, even in your sleep, you would want to play that song a hundred times because he paid for it.
That’s why you will always see a Davido song on Apple Store No. 1, on Boomplay, and on all the platforms No. 1 or No. 2.
These people know what to do at every point in time.
Growing up in this industry, I have seen situations where artists will come and meet one person to help them run promotions, you will listen to the song and it’s banging, the artist’s voice is sweet and nice, and the song needs to be out there. But there is no money to run it.
You can’t be a music artist and say you are just doing the music thing, be ready to fund it. Is funding that is the key here.
Like my colleague Marv said, if you don’t have money for a manager, don’t get a manager.
You can create a niche for yourself to be No. 1 in the industry by having proper structures and funding.
Start by doing other things to raise funds for your musical career.
Learn tech skills, be a movie actor, or sell something to build an empire for yourself.
If you are ready to do the hard work, I don’t think you can be helped.
Yhemolee and Asake
Yhemolee and Asake were friends in school, Yhemolee came up first and entered the industry. After getting out there, he tries to bring his friend Asake into every table he sits on. He was the one who pitched Asake to Olamide and boom! Asake is blown.
Who would pitch you to a record label with the funding to put you out there?
If you want to be like a Yhemolee, you want to be like an Asake, you want to be like a Wizkid, you want to be like a Davido, is funding.
No funding, no music.
Those ones you see that people pick up on Instagram and are like “This person is so good” or “This person’s voice is so good” Before you know it that person would trend, how many of them retain that fame out there?
It’s not by having fame, it’s consistency and sustainability which can be possible only when you have a proper business structure.
Mide – thank you for this ma.
Oluchi Igbo – you’re welcome Mide, thank you for having me.
Mide – Wow! Artists need to create a sustainable structure by taking their talents as a business and looking for funding to fuel their dreams.
My last question is for the artists who don’t have access to funding and are just starting. They have the passion, zeal, and drive but no one to fund them. Are there things such artists can put in place while working for the money?
Oluchi Igbo – As I mentioned, there are lots of things to do, to be out there, the internet has made it easy for us creatives.
When I say getting funding, it’s creating a niche for yourself by diversifying.
Things to Do as a Creative to Make Money
- Become a tech pro
- Produce skits
- Produce movies and sell to YouTube – they now buy movies like Netflix.
- Make clothes – have something out there to generate money even while you’re sleeping.
Before Phyno became Phyno, he was a seasoned producer for years.
Johnny Drille as we all know is an A-list sound guy till tomorrow.
Mide – Thank you very much ma.
Oluchi Igbo – You’re welcome.
Mide – You can drop your questions, and when our speakers have time they’ll reply.
Mide is the Founder and Creative Director of Creative Culture Community – the largest community of young creatives in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Marv Ekenna is an Entertainment Business Enthusiast. Talent manager, booking agent. Lead curator at Next Up World with a passion for pushing the Afrobeats narrative beyond its current borders.
Oluchi Igbo is a Creative Visionary & Industry Expert, a seasoned Creative Director, Production Manager, and Artist Manager with over 10 years of experience driving innovative projects and supporting A-list talent.
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How many times should one pay for a promotion
And how can you get a good promoter