SC-160 · Founder
Exporting African Music: Rights, Revenue, and Global Growth
Guest: Yoel Kenan, Founder of Africori
Summary
Yoel Kenan, a French executive who worked at Universal, MP3.com and BMG before founding the distributor Africori, argues that Sub-Saharan Africa consumes huge amounts of music but monetizes little of it. In 2012 he forecast a recording market above $1 billion by 2017. Thirteen years later it is about $110 million, and he says plainly that he got it wrong.
Around $75 to $80 million of that comes from South Africa, and 72% of South African revenue is international music. Africori earned roughly 70% of its income from exports. YouTube pays 20 to 25 times less in East Africa than in the US, telcos have failed to build their own music platforms, and Amapiano sessions often end without agreed splits, which stalls collection society payouts.
Kenan also buys catalogs through African Music Rights, starting with a South African catalog of 11,000 songs. Missing contracts, falsified reports and late ownership claims make that hard. He sold Africori to Warner after taking its investment shortly before Master KG's Jerusalema broke. Next he wants to focus on exporting African culture and a fund and accelerator for cultural entrepreneurs.
As of the episode's release on 7 September 2026.
Key takeaways
- 01Investors in African music should expect a 10 to 15 year horizon, because quick exits in three years are rare and relationships with artists take years to build.
- 02Most revenue from African music is earned abroad, so export capability and international marketing matter more than domestic streaming for now.
- 03Catalog buyers face missing contracts and people claiming rights years later, so Kenan now avoids buying catalogs whose sellers cannot show paperwork.
- 04With three $1 million pots, he would buy catalogs whose audiences have not yet moved to streaming, back artists with export potential, and build better marketing tools.
- 05Artists who break internationally, like Tyla, commit years abroad with a team that understands the work, which Kenan says many acts underestimate.
- 06Taking investment from a major label leaves that major as the only realistic buyer, a trade-off Kenan says he would try to avoid next time.
Chapters
- Cold open on monetization
- From Paris to Universal, MP3.com and BMG
- Founding Africori in 2012
- Is there money in African music
- Why the majors left and returned
- Collection societies and unclear splits
- Buying catalogs with African Music Rights
- Telcos, ringback tones and data
- Where he would invest $3 million
- Selling Africori to Warner
Guest
- Yoel Kenan, Founder at Africori
Questions this episode answers
Why does African music generate so little revenue despite huge consumption?
Kenan says consumption across Sub-Saharan Africa is high but monetization lags badly. He forecast a billion-dollar recording market by 2017; thirteen years later it sits at about $110 million, held back by low-paying advertising-based streaming, weak telecom-linked subscriptions and unresolved rights splits.
Why is buying an African music catalog risky?
Catalog buyers face missing contracts, falsified reports and people who surface years later claiming ownership of recordings made decades earlier. Kenan says he was once given a falsified report and has faced rights disputes on other deals, so he now avoids catalogs whose sellers cannot produce paperwork.
Why haven't telecom companies succeeded with their own music platforms?
Telcos control payment and data bundles and have tried repeatedly to launch their own streaming products, but Kenan says none has managed to build a lasting music platform of its own, since users keep gravitating to YouTube and Spotify instead of a carrier's app.
Where would an investor get the best long-term return in African music?
Kenan would split money across catalogs whose audiences have not yet moved to streaming, such as gospel music, artists and songs with genuine export potential, and better marketing and data tools for the wider ecosystem, expecting returns only on a ten-to-fifteen-year horizon.
You can't apply the same rule as maybe in Europe. You can't get an exit in three years.
Episode notes
African music is growing globally, but the business behind that growth is still catching up.
In this episode of Sound Connections, Jakob Wredstrøm speaks with Yoel Kenan, a longtime music executive and entrepreneur whose career has taken him from major-label roles at Universal and BMG to building businesses focused specifically on African music. After founding Africori and helping develop it into a significant distribution business, Yoel is now returning his attention to African music rights, catalog investment, and the wider opportunity around cultural entrepreneurship.
Together, they unpack why the growth story of Sub-Saharan African music is more complicated than the headline numbers suggest. Yoel discusses the gap between huge levels of music consumption and comparatively low monetization, the role of telecom companies and streaming platforms, challenges around publishing and rights registration, and why missing contracts and unclear ownership can make catalog investment particularly difficult.
From exporting African artists and songs to building stronger marketing systems, investing in catalogs whose audiences are still moving toward streaming, and supporting the next generation of cultural entrepreneurs, Yoel sees significant opportunity, but on a longer timeline than many investors expect.
This is a candid conversation about patience, infrastructure, ownership, and what it will actually take for African music’s global momentum to become a stronger and more sustainable business.
Produced by Amplitude Ventures AS.
Topics
Transcript
Transcribed from the recording by the production team. Names and terms may be misspelled.
Read the full transcript
Jakob
If you drum out drum out for somehow and you just rejoin at one point, it just works continuously. So you shouldn't be worried about that. And then also it sort of uploads and downloads the conversation of both sides as we go. So if it gets a bit grainy or laggy, people on the other side are not gonna notice. So in that sense, Riverside does it quite nicely.
yoel
No problem.
Jakob
Great. Well that I will start in five seconds.
Jakob
Hey guys and welcome back to the Sound Connections Podcast. Yoel, thank you so much for being in the studio today.
yoel
Hi Jacob. Thank you very much for having me.
Jakob
I've been very excited about this podcast and the opportunity to speak with you today. I have had a few episodes on the podcast talking about emergent economies and music, talking about everything from Asia, South America and Africa. And I think we're gonna talk about something really interesting today, Yul, which is your journey and your occupation and your part of the music industry, and we can learn a lot more from that. But you'll for people who don't know you and what you do, who are you and what do you do?
yoel
Wow, that's a difficult question. No. So my name is Yoel Kenan. I'm French. So I grew up in Paris, and got into the music business quite early on as while I was a student, organizing some concerts, studying a small indie label, and then moved to, you know, to work with the majors and I mean do you want me to go through all of this or okay.
Jakob
Well y sitting context that would be great, yeah.
yoel
So I've worked in the music business for thirty-five plus years. The first part in Paris, as I mentioned, into some live small live shows and then indie label and then major in the marketing fields. And then I moved to London to work on the international marketing side. So working for Universal and coordinating and working on applying marketing plans and around big international artist, also European artists. There was a Norwegian artist I worked with, called Espen Lind at that time. Yeah. From the night we had a we had a big success with him, and then I was always I've been I've always been interested about new things, interested about I think trying to solve some problems I was dealing with. Not every problem, but the problem I'm dealing with. So
Jakob
Really? Yeah, yeah.
yoel
I was very much I was dragged into the digital world quite early on from 96, 97, and became that was a title that meant not much at that time, which was the first set of digital of Universal outside of the US North America. And my job was to say no to everything. That was 98 in the matrix. But it was interesting. It was interesting to be inside, and then when Vivendi acquired Universal, they've asked me to they also acquired a company at that time which was called MP3.com, based in San Diego, and they asked me to launch the European arm of MP3.com, which was very exciting. That was in 2000, I believe, and then or 2001, and then I've moved to BMG, so Bertelsman, in 2002 to run the European marketing division and business development. So looking at you know opening up new opportunities for music mostly in Europe. And during that time I got invited I don't know how, I got invited to fly to go to Lagos in Nigeria. It was 2002 or 2003, it was an invitation from MTN, which was, which C still is the one of the top network operators, a mobile operator in Africa and definitely strong in Nigeria. It's a South African company. And I did do some I did interact with some emerging markets before at MP3.com because Vivendi used to On also Maroc Telecom and in Morocco, then we had this invitation from MTN. I was like, this is crazy. We're living in a world where the majors are like crying every day, firing people left, right, and center because the whole business is going down at an incredible rate. People panicking for all the reasons that you've read, if you if you didn't leave that life during that time. And
yoel
And I was this was not a very exciting time because they were not listening at the opportunities that light ahead and were in that kind of very weird space. While at the same time, when you worked with Maroc Telecom or you work with MTN or other operators, you saw new opportunities and you said, This is incredible. This is market. Those are markets where we really never sold a lot of records in the last ten, fifteen, twenty years, and now suddenly opening up and they're the one cutting us. I mean I remember Turk sale in Istanbul killing
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
Collegas to say we need to do business with you guys. I mean they had eighty million or whatever it is, a huge amount of subscribers at that time. So it was interesting that we were actually not taking those opportunities in many markets that we overlooked at that time, completely looking at our own problems. So I decided to focus on that and when BMG and Sunny merged, I decided that was the right time to really focus on that and you can call it a midlife crisis. I call it you know, I call it a space where I wanted to seize opportunities. I like to be in environments where everybody around you is positive. So you're looking at solving problems more at trying to be defensive. And the industry at that time felt very defensive. So I did a you know, I worked as with my own company and my client was Universal Music and I started to develop opportunity for them in emerging markets. That lasted a year, year and a half. Anyway, I based myself in South Africa. I had some my ex-wife is from I mean you know grew up in South Africa. So I learned to love this country early on. And travel a lot in the continent, and then at the end I think I was just too early. My family wanted to be back in London and went back to London, took a job running Jazz FM, the leading jazz radio station was very interesting, period. And then a couple of years later, some friends of mine were telling me, I think your ideas about what's happening in the continent. I think the time is now, and I have really, so I re-looked at it. I got lucky, I found a partner from Finland.
Jakob
Mm-hmm.
yoel
Who supported me and said, okay, you know what? I think his words were, I think you ate shit for six years. I think you learned you've learned you've learned a lot about the continent. I mean it was quite extreme, but he was in a way very right. The I think the first wave of 2005 to eleven or ten was very much learning years, you know, going around the continent, meeting people, looking at opportunities, but also making a lot of mistakes. That somebody could make in a continent, in a new continent. So yeah. So and then went back in 2012 and started Afriquory, which started really as again was trying to solve a problem that I felt because I had a lot of friends and colleagues who were asking me for advice about distributing the music. And the international distributor were also developing the businesses and They didn't have the time to really focus on African clients, artists or labels. So I decided, you know what, let's do it ourselves. Only focus on African music. The idea was definitely to focus, I mean, my objective was betting on the fact that the continent's gonna grow as grow ex you know exponentially and become a really big market where local music is predominant because the consumption of local music in Africa is very high.
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
We know the population growth has been incredible in the last ten years and it's gonna be even more incredible the next twenty years. So all the all the macroeconomic elements were there. So we focused on that. We were still too early. It took us a few years, and we managed to exist. We managed to, you know, I think what is very important in the continents is resilience. And if you ask any entrepreneur in this market, just the fact that you're still there six or seven years later is already a big thing. And you know, then around twenty nineteen it just started to click a bit. I mean South Africa started to grow. I'm sure you're gonna ask those questions later, but anyway there's a
Jakob
Yeah. I can imagine.
Jakob
Yeah, it's it's so interesting.
yoel
There's a lot there's a lot of things, but that's what happened. That's what happened and I sold Afri Cori. I finally sold you know, I left Afri Cori five months ago.
Jakob
Hmm. And then you have African music rights and we'll talk about that like just to set the scene from my own ignorance or knowledge in this space like I obviously am a student of music so I've tried to read up and understand Africa. I've also done a joint collaboration project with Music Tech N Nigeria on some studies here. And then we have a lot of our operational force and Amplitude us out of East Africa. So we have a lot of people in Ethiopia, Burundi, Nigeria. So I have an exposure to the market without knowing fully anything. But one of the things that I see and I hear with people is that there is a growing market that's restricted by many different things. For example, mobile network and the cost of data, but A Africa in general is really interesting as a new market to monetize. So maybe let's maybe let's talk a tiny bit about that, and I'll ask a blunt statement question. Is there money in African music rights?
yoel
Compared to the work that you have to put in, maybe not. The ROI is not as good as other markets. And I think that has been the problem. So what I'll give you told me before you like, you know, direct answers and quirks. So yes. Even though I started on
Jakob
Yep, I love it.
yoel
The belief that the local market's gonna grow. And you know, at that time in 2013 and 12, we said by 2017 the market, the recording market's gonna be over a billion dollars. And then I had those numbers were also checked by telcos, who had access to the number of smartphones being sold or feature phones and, you know, some information. So I did verify and double check them before even believing you know my own hype. And We're now what, 13 years later? And the recording market in Sub-Saharan Africa is what $110 million? You know, that's the simple answer. So I completely got it wrong. I mean, yes, we're the fastest growing market. And I shouldn't be talking badly about the continent. I mean I'm I still believe extremely about the continent. I still believe that there's gonna be an exponential growth. I still believe that and we have something that many other continents might not have, many have, is that we have the ability to export. And we've seen that with you know, Afrobeat and Nigerian music, we've seen that with Ama Piano and Afro House, coming from Southern Africa or from anywhere in Africa. So and I'm talking when I talk Africa, I'm talking sub Sahara because that's where I focused. But so the there is definitely money to be made. There's definitely growth in the continent. Yes, we see those big numbers. We see some DSP like Boom Play talking about eighty million monthly listeners or the Danish company. I mean It's on it's run by a Danish guy. Mdundo, who's been there for years, you know, great team and they worked hard. They've got I think over forty or forty five or fifty million monthly users. Those are great numbers. But revenue wise it hasn't generated what we expect. And there's many, you know, I mean we look at anyway, we can go for that for long.
Jakob
Mm.
Jakob
Yeah, we'll talk about a lot of these things now and again, I'm gonna I'm gonna be quite curious about this space because it's something I've self studied and I don't self study a lot of things, but this is one of the things that I'm trying to study. But maybe let's put some basics in place. We'll talk about your journey as well and sort of how that's gone. But when you talk about export versus internal consumption of music, what's the revenue split there?
yoel
For us was from for a long time was seventy percent export, thirty percent domestic. And we had some you know, some big clients with you know, we had the biggest catalogue in the continent, which is Gallo Music that we distributed. So yeah, that's what it was. I think now, depending on the year, it could be closer to sixty forty, sixty export forty, but you know, I haven't seen the numbers the last five months here.
Jakob
But still, you know, I would say that's probably a significant number compared to where my association goes is like, okay, probably there's not a lot of paying ability in the continent. So therefore, you know, the outside world that are consuming this is probably paying more. But it seems like there is like a good deal of consumers that are paying for services in the continent or
yoel
I mean if you look yes, of course. I mean if you look at that, I'm trying to find the English word, but you know, you've got the TikTok consumptions, which we've seen tracks two tracks that we had reaching 10 or 11 billions stream consumption, you know, views consumed in the continent. Not many, that was the biggest one, but we have tracks we can do, you know, hundreds of millions of possibly two or three or four billion on a regular basis.
Jakob
Sure.
yoel
That's great. Now, of course, the revenue we generate in Africa with TikTok is lower than what you'll do in France, in the US, or in Norway. Then you've got the YouTube consumption, which is, you know, quite large and it's sometimes overindexing in markets like Ethiopia or Tanzania, Tanzania, because it's you know it's been there historically. I think there were also some bundles between telecom operators and YouTube. But it's a very popular way of consuming music and it's advertising based, mostly, ninety-nine percent. So the revenues are of course much, much lower. We're talking about could be twenty, twenty-five times lower than what you'll get in the US. So we will have tracks who do hundred million views on YouTube, but the gen the revenue generated, let's say fifty million of those are in tens in East Africa, it's gonna be quite small. It's the same with yeah, go ahead.
Jakob
Hmm. So Okay, I just have one question. Like, for example, we had Chinito, Dr. Chinito on our podcast who's from Nigeria, who's sort of a copyright expert. And one of the things he said, this is around I think two years ago, he was on the podcast last time, was about music IP being the new crude oral of Nigeria. Like the expert. So when it comes to okay, we have a Nigerian composer or rights holder and they export the track and that becomes popular, obviously compared to the GP per capita in that country, that is a very significant amount of income. Like, is that a real thing as you see like can these international hits and plays actually have significant impact locally or is it still ish?
yoel
So i is international music as impact locally or local music impacts i locally and internationally? The Latin
Jakob
No, let me ask it differently. So there's a hundred and ten million revenue associated to African music, but for a person living in the continent, is that a livelihood that can actually sustain it? Is that attractive career path?
yoel
Yeah.
yoel
Look, if you want to go down deeper in that number, hundred and ten million, seventy-five or eighty million of that is South Africa. And in South Africa, seventy-two percent of that number is international music. So the local music has grown in South Africa digitally, last year in 25, it's grown, I've looked at it before the meeting, it's grown by 40, 44%. So it has grown from 200 million round to let's say just under 300 million.
Jakob
Hm.
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
So which is in dollars will be now around eighteen million dollars locally. So the revenue that IFPI because those are type of IFPI you know numbers it's very small. So of course the lion's share of the revenue is what you're exporting. Now does it make a diff does it make a
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
Does it change the life of many artists and songwriters and copyright in the continent? It does more than it used to be than five or six years ago, where, you know, except a few people in Algeria and a few people in Savar. I mean, whatever, inf it's it would be quite complicated. Today there's a number of artists, songwriters and composers that can live, not maybe live in the most luxury life, but they can sustain their lives. With digital, with digital revenue for the master recording or even publishing. So and that trend's just gonna grow. But the reality still is that the revenue you generate in let's say in East Africa, it's great. You make, you get, you know, i locally it's gonna be, it's gonna help you, but it won't even recover the cost of marketing or the cost of the video, whatever cost that you've done. But it will allow you to then generate revenue with the live business or generate revenue with, you know, brand associations and so forth. So it does help and it's definitely has made a big, big change. I mean today I would say yeah, they, there will be a f a few hundred people in South Africa, for example, who can live well. But we're not talking about fifty thousand people, you know.
Jakob
Because one of the things about sort of Africa as I've understood it is that there were major labels entering into the country, like the continent, but then withdrawing. So who is making money now? Is it anyone who's winning from the benefits of this growth, or is it just a number of small players to some degree?
yoel
So it's interesting what you said because you're right. In the 70s, 60s, 70s, Yemai and Polygram and possibly others were, I mean outside of South Africa. In South Africa you've had a more structured business, but I'm talking about West Africa was a very big market for Yemen and Polygram. They've had, they had factories there, vinyl factories in West Africa, even Côte d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, for Francophone music and Congo, of course. So
Jakob
Hm.
yoel
There were markets and Kenya had also infrastructure. So you had, it was a physical market and they were selling and then between political uncertainties and changes, civil wars and war and whatever, plus economical issues, plus lack of copyright regulations and so forth, of course everybody left. When I came in, when I got invited in 2003, I discovered, I mean, they told you're the first senior executive to come back to the country, you to Nigeria since whatever it is, since the majors left. And there were a lot of expectations, and it was, you know, it was very interesting. Now, today I will say that.
yoel
Again, besides South Africa, most of the majors are looking at the continent as, or not just majors or major distributors as well. Looking at the continent as an area that they can't just not be. They can't, you know, they have to have it, but it's mostly on what can we upstream, what can we export, what are the artists that can export. So of course there will be a lot of interest, on the main names and then they realize that maybe they need to be there earlier on so they don't have to buy, to pay or to, you know, to sign artists when they already starting to explode. So I would say, you know, the international companies made more money with Bernaboy, Whiskey, Davido, Ashake, Tyler, you know, CK and so forth than just artists who are selling in the country. Now it's changing, because you can run a business in certain markets for the local markets and especially South Africa.
Jakob
Hmm. So what you're saying is that they're present there mostly for there might be a potential business. We might be able to export some so there's some revenue to it, but it's not necessarily with an expectation of this is an emerging market and in ten years we're gonna reap, like reap the benefits of being here. Like what's the mentality there you believe?
yoel
I think you'll benefit, but you have to do it in the right way. You can't, the problem with investment in the continent is that you can't apply the same rule as maybe in Europe. You can't get an exit in three years. I mean it can, it's possible. There've been examples like that, but it's rare. So it's really about a longer term approach. It's, you know, it's about, okay.
Jakob
Hm.
yoel
You need to build those relationships. You need to understand. It's great to come at any time. You and you can buy companies like Maven with Universal, like Chocolate City at one stage, or like us. And you know, but the understanding of the business, being there with the artists, the songwriters. During those years are so valuable when you, when the business really gonna start to exponentially grow. Because it will grow. There's no reason why it's not gonna grow. It's just, it's a, it's a matter of time. There's no reason. It's not like people are stopping and say, we're not gonna, consumption of music in the continent is high. It's the monetization which is a problem. And it's not just, yeah.
Jakob
Hmm. And talking about one is decision, like, is there rightful allocation to rights holders? Is there a structural problem in that sense? Or because you know what I've heard again is there's a lot of CMOs in different countries that I'm maybe quite inefficient and there's not really a good system for getting the right people paid. Is that solved now or like what's your perspective on this?
yoel
Look, it's not solved. I mean, but that's one part of it. That's on the, on the publishing side, you know, if you're talking about the CMOs. Before even we talk about the role of the CMOs and the efficiency over there, which of course can be improved, We're not able to extract as much value as we would expect for music consumed in the continent. And if you look at digital advertising revenue, yes, the expectations of the next eight or nine years are huge. Again, we're hoping that with advertising revenue growing and with a larger base of paid subscribers, which is a small base to paid subscribers, that's what's gonna drive the growth of the, of the business. We're looking at, I mean, there are a lot of clever people and entrepreneurs are looking at new models, how to extract better. That can help, but we haven't surfed what, you know, Mexico has served or even India has served when suddenly, you know, streaming revenue grown from a small base to a, to a much bigger base, a base that is acceptable. I mean even Turkey. I mean we're looking at, we're far away from that. And yeah. And that is an issue. So in terms of the CMOs, yes of course you can do better. Of course at the moment I think the, I mean look the biggest CMO in the continent again sub Sahara is gonna be South Africa with Capaso and SAMRO. Even on the neighboring rights
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
SAMPRA in South Africa is, you know, is growing and it's a strong, strong collecting society. So we've got an infrastructure. But if you start to look at outside, and again, most of the deals on the digital, on the streaming revenue, which is the lion's share now of what CMOs are generating revenue from, are deal, are dealt with those international major DSPs. So you're gonna have a deal with Spotify, with YouTube, and they can collect. So from YouTube and Spotify. I think the issue then is how do we, how do we make sure that all the rights holders get paid and you know, w that all the songs are registered, that even the split. I even shared. I mean, you know, we have a huge problem in South Africa that with this dance culture and amma piano culture that you've got four or five guys in the studio, everybody left creating three or four songs and then s three weeks later or four weeks later nobody, they've never agreed on what the terms of the, of the share will be. And now we're delivering a song without exactly the right splits. So if you don't have the right split, the CMOs tend to sometimes not pay the rights owner until they've got all the rights on her, you know, all the song, all the information finalized. So that also delays.
Jakob
Hmm.
Jakob
So a question is, so your involvement in African music rights, try to explain that a tiny bit and what your motivation is behind that.
yoel
The new company. Okay, so this company is actually not new. This company is, it just, it's, it came by accident. So in 2013 I was trying to convince a South African label specialized in, I will say, gospel and mascandi, which is kind of traditional music from the Zululand, so KwaZulu-Natal. And they said no, we, you know, we actually want to sell it. So I managed to buy the catalogue and that was twenty thirteen. And then in twenty fourteen, I did a joint venture with Milicom, which is a Swedish-based company that you know that owns the Tigo, the network, the network operator at that time. They had six or seven telecom operators in the continent. They have also in Central America and I guess north of South Afri of South America. And we decided to go into acquiring more catalogues in artist catalogues and catalogue. It was not easy. And after a year and a half, two years, they had a change of strategy on the worldwide, I mean, on a global level and they decided to get out of the continent. So here's this, there are stories which is quite interesting about s huge investment in telecom and other businesses of international companies coming into the continent then realizing this is not for us, we're moving away. And that would be interesting to ask the people who did it at that time why they took that decision and if it was the right decision. You know, looking back ten years later. I was, I'm always quite interested in that. So African Music Right was and still is. I mean I put it on ice for the last ten years because I was focused on Afri Cori. And then so it's really about aquarian's artist catalogs and some catalogues in the continent. Making sure that, you know, cleaning it, digitizing it, reworking it,
yoel
Finding maybe opportunities for remixes for some of the songs as well and trying to re energize the s the catalogue. Again, it was very early stages. It worked for AMR. We had good returns, really, really good returns. The big catalogue we bought originally was Cool Spot in South Africa, which was eleven thousand songs. It's twenty seven years of recording. Very interesting catalogue. And it's interesting because from time to time I still get remixes and You know, and people around the world are asking to access some of the music and see if they can work it. Then I bought another catalogue, s another South African catalogue, which one of the songs just got remixed by Barry Can't Swim. Not remixed, but sampled. Barry Can't Swim just now, three or four months ago. So that always interesting, and I think we're gonna see more traction on that song. It's a great song that he created. And then we've got catalogue from a few, I will say five or six artists in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda as well. And
Jakob
Usually when you buy catalogs it's you know, some sort of fund structure behind you raise institutional capital and you ni need to provide a certain sort of return investment. What's been the process between this?
yoel
Friends and family.
Jakob
Friends and family, okay.
yoel
Friends and family, we started the first one, I promised some return. We over of, you know, we overdelivered. We asked for a loan, it's fine. And now it's kind of, look, it was hard. It was hard because there's a few things. First of all, you, we even though you do a lot of due diligence, I got in situation where somebody falsified every report. So criminal, yeah. And how do you get your money back? Not easy. I got some of it, not all of it. So thank God we're slowly recouping some of the investment we had. That was a few years ago. I got a situation where you buy the catalogue from an artist and you did all your due diligence and you ask, you know, around and lawyers, whatever, and then 10 years later somebody comes and says actually you don't own. Those rights that recording was done by me in seventy whatever it was or eighty five or something and I'm like, can you show me your contract? I mean, you know, and we're in that situation and trying to find a solution. So because I decided not to buy, not to try to buy catalogue from catalogue owners because sometimes they didn't have the, I mean most of the time they don't even have the contract. So how can you buy
Jakob
Wow.
yoel
Something without the contract, knowing very well that there's gonna be an issue somewhere. So it's hard. It's really, really hard. I mean he had that situation, thank God with a catalogue in South Africa, I've got everything. So somebody else claimed that he had the rights. When we're like doing this deal with you know, with this artist in the UK and I'm like, Well hang a second, I've got the right. I say, No, I've got them. And I said, Show me your contract. He said, I don't have a contract. I said, I've got one. You know, and this c on that case I had everything. But it's quite rare. And I think that's why there's not that many people looking at by so you know there's great catalogue. There's, I mean you do licensing, it's easier. You license, I mean, you know, there's some Ethiopian jazz music from Milong, you've got incredible music from Mogadishu, you know, in Sumatra, you've got great catalogues and great music, and maybe you're gonna find one song. Will be sampled by one of the biggest artists in the world and suddenly there's money and then you're gonna have 17 people coming and say, hey, wait, where's my share? So you need to be really, really tight and really strong. And I understand it's so we've been very careful. I'm re-vi I'm restarting it again now. Maybe we'll raise, I mean we've got, we've been approached from companies who are happy to invest and to see if we can do some work together on acquiring those catalog, but I'm trying to review it and see if there's a different way to do it, a more efficient way to do it.
Jakob
Really interesting. We'll get back to it and I have a sort of related question, but which is also a bit left or center. You have mentioned telco a few times in this conversation. And that's also when I've done my homework, that sort of comes back and back again. For people who don't understand the dynamics between music subscription payment and telecom companies, could you explain what's going on there?
yoel
So it is, I'll try. It i it is changing. So the before streaming services really the only way to consume digital, not the only way, but the way people were consuming digital music was through ring back tones. And ring back tone was and in some markets it still is, a business. And we're talking about a lot of companies that came like companies who didn't come from music business, who just came there, middlemen between the telcos and the
Jakob
Yeah.
yoel
content owners if you want, the record labels and so forth and they were making a lot of money. And I never wanted to play in that space because I thought it wasn't fair. The line share was going towards, I mean you let's say you'll sell a s a ring back ton or CRBT at one dollar, you as an artist will get maybe five cents. And maybe you as a label get ten cents. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. And but a lot of people made a lot of money there.
Jakob
Yeah.
yoel
So at that time, not only the way to consume digital music was through the telcos, but also of course payments and you know everything was done through them. With the streaming service and YouTube and you know all the services that exist, now most of, I mean I'll say 90-something percent, if not more, of the consumption, the content goes through the mobile. And usually it goes or through Wi-Fi or through the cell or through the, you know. To the cell phone itself, to the network operators, sorry. So they have the ability to, the payment facilities that the telcos have helps a lot. So you've got Spotify or Apple integrating the offering with a telco. So and ideally what you want is the telco to offer maybe some data bundle saying, okay, we'll give you six hours a month. Usually I mean a of people are recharging the airtime every day or every week, but whenever you recharge will give you a certain amount of time free of data to consume on let's say Spotify or YouTube or Facebook or TikTok or whatever it is, or maybe all of them. So the telcos have the reach. They definitely have the reach, but interestingly enough, none of them are succeeded in creating their own music platform. And they've tried. They've tried many, many times. And they had some numbers and we all hoped. And then, you know, they realized that actually I mean i they've, there has been some success, but the mainstream is gonna be on how you get people to move from whatever they consume now to a blended consumption using their cell phone and the telco. And possibly a re starting with some advertising based model but trying to move them to a subscriber based. And I think the problem is, it's possibly a problem, is that YouTube offering is so good and it's so easy to access that some people stay on YouTube and not ready to pay for a subscriber, you know, subscription instead. The f the free offering Yeah.
Jakob
Mm.
Jakob
All the figures but one of the one of the readings I've done in the field is why subscription is a really hard thing to do is also because the telco takes the lion's share of the subscription as you know the numbers that I read is you know sometimes it's 55% of the subscription amount goes directly to the consumption of data in telco which means you first as a streaming service needs to come in at you know a low lower price point than what you usually surf this at. And then the lion share goes to the telco to even providing the service when it comes to the data cost. If do I understand this correctly or what's the dynamic here?
yoel
Yeah, I mean th there are people better positioned than me to answer that question. They're more involved in that space and I've got a couple in mind. But yes, there is that, of course, but you know, the telcos have offered also I'm thinking about MTN offered IOBA in South Africa and in so a few markets in Africa where it was free data. So you can consume a yoga, you can consume some gamings and videos and some music for free. And that they closed it. So they, I wasn't involved in to in terms of like the product launch and everything. So I don't know exactly why, because I also tried to be well, I spent a few years in my life tr very much focused on platforms like mp3.coms and others. When I decided to, I realized I don't want, let me have other people who are maybe brighter and more focused on that space to try to solve and to find a solution. And we've had so many offering from offering that worked in Central America that didn't work here for whatever reason. That is that could be a very interesting podcast with five or six people who've been working in that space and learning from the experience. That would be actually amazing. I'm signing for that straight away.
Jakob
Yeah, no let's talk about that afterwards. We'll figure that out for sure. But you know, you know, we've talked about even though you have made return investment on sort of buying catalogs and you've had a successful company dis distributing African music, also what I hear from you and others is it's still you know, a prob problematic space to do good business. But if you were to focus on where you practically believe
yoel
Yeah.
Jakob
There would be the next big opportunities if an outside company wanted to invest in African infrastructure or whatever, like where would you suggest that people focus?
yoel
There's two things because for me, I really want to focus more and more on being the best at exporting African music to the rest of the world. And I think it's like and it's not just the same way as exporting French or Italian music, it's about what does it need, what does it require, what are those cultural entrepreneurs or artists or managers need what type of, you know, ecosystem we need to create, not just the funding, not just opening doors. So it's and those are the type of nuances that you understand once you spend time in the continent, once you go through those things because It's funny, we sometimes project a certain way of doing business because that's the way we do business and we see we kind of look at the environment so okay, this I understand this is a bit different, that is a bit different, but I'm still gonna project a certain way. Where maybe the way to do it is completely forget everything you know and re-look at it in a in a different way, understanding the space. I think again is How we can improve there's different ways. How we can improve extracting revenue in Africa for music and this not just through the streaming services, there are other ways of doing it. You know, maybe using music as a customer acquisition model. You know, there are people already to pay much more money per customer acquisition. There's a lack of data in the continent as well. We have data, but music brings a lot of data as well. So and the good thing as I said is that the consumption of music is very high and people are loving to consume music. So it's there. It's part of the you know, it's the continent is young and that's the exciting thing about it. So that's another area and
yoel
Yeah, look, I think the there's an area that I haven't looked into, which I think is of course gonna be important, is the live business. The live business in the continent. Again, there are challenges, but with but it's there. People, you know, there's a lot of big events. Yeah. Can we structure it better? Can we bring a better system? Can we professionalize it and whoever does it you know, if you ha if that person has a ten to fifteen Euros view on it, could be a very, very lucrative investment.
Jakob
Let me th this these are great answers, but let me put it a bit more on the nose. So in a hypothetical question which obviously is not super realistic, but I'll do it anyways. Let's say that I gave you three pots of one million USD and I would say, in fifteen years give me the best returns on investment on music. Where would you put those one million?
yoel
So the different parts. I will look at buying catalogue of under of music that is where the consumers have not moved to streaming services yet. And there's great potential. I'm taking, you know, for example, gospel music and you know and music like that. I will definitely invest in identifying and trying to get to work with songs and artists who have inter export potential that's definitely a point and maybe coming at different stage of their lives and I think also that maybe developing a better marketing tools in the continent. So I think they we have consumption, but I think there's a lot of l loss you know, inefficiency there as well. And I think they could be n that will work not just for the music, but also work for brands and other things like that. So connecting brands and music together.
Jakob
Really interesting questions. I want to dissect some of them. Talk about marketing and digital marketing. Obviously, you know, if you have the traditional association to digital marketing is getting eyeballs and stuff like, you know, exposure to something. It's too expensive, I can imagine, having a let's say South African product and you want to present it in front of European consumers, like it's too expensive, right? Like w what is it about marketing that you think would make sense?
yoel
I think if you if you develop better marketing tools or if you approach it in a more efficient way, it won't be as expensive to find the right people and to build the right narratives for music or other African product when you're trying to sell them outside of Africa. I think today we know that there are a number of people who are enjoying African music. Trendsetters, you know, it used to be diaspora, not diaspora plus people who are not you know, historically from Africa. And I think there is
Jakob
Hmm.
yoel
I think we could really benefit from str stronger support and tools into that. So that's why I'm saying the efficiency of exporting. I think at the moment it's kind of like a lot of it is based on TikTok and based on, you know, on kind of like social media. Organic generation and I think how do you boost it, how do you make it more efficient? How do you before even a TikTok organic moment arrived, is there any other ways to do it? And I think we can. I really think that I think we're not the best at telling our stories.
Jakob
Hm. And do you think that's the bottleneck? Because you know, it's a big content. You know, sub Saharan Africa is one point two billion, right? So there must be a lot of content being made. So do you think marketing exposure is the bottleneck in the success of the industry?
yoel
As and art.
yoel
No, I s I say it's an opportunity. I'm not looking at bottleneck.
Jakob
No, I know, I know. I it's an opportunity, but is the is it also current bottleneck? So o obviously we've had these international successes from sub you know, sub Saharan Africa. But do you believe that there is more talent and it's really the exposure that's the bottleneck in the past and the current maybe?
yoel
It's a combination of a lot of things because you have we've had situations where we had talent and music that travels but the commitment and the support of artists and management wasn't there.
Jakob
Okay, explain that. That's a big statement.
yoel
So
yoel
I think some people don't often realize the type of commitment you need to push and support a song or your career internationally. And some people think look, I'm gonna go twice to Europe, do a few things here and there, and it's gonna be okay, I've done it. And they sometimes there's not the same drive. So we've seen it in Nigeria, it's very, very strong drive in Ghana as well. We've seen it with some success in South Africa, but quite often I feel like, do you know how much work? It requires to do that. And I know it's far away. And I know you have to go back all the time. And I know we've got visa issues and we know all those top all those issues. But there's a the fact that I've worked with I've worked with artists who I was trying to explain what we need to do. And then they went to the US, spent a few months, whatever, and they came back and said, now I understand what you were saying. I thought they understood what I was saying, but they clearly didn't. Not because then they're not bright, they're very, very bright. It's just the nuances that you understand while you're doing it. Once you go and you and you work and you do your promotions and tour the US, you're gonna see some of the problems. You're gonna see that actually you're competing with other people and they're coming there more often. You know, w the Tyler success, of course it's a song, but they were like three songs before that one. We distributed the first song, you know. We know that, but it was taken by, you know, Epic in the US, worked, pushed, supported. She spent more time in internationally than in South Africa for years. The management understood what job needed in it was required as well. So it's a team. And I think we've been in a situation where too often I've had situation where for whatever reason we I didn't feel the w we were the work was supported enough. Maybe, you know, in terms of investment or maybe in terms of just time and sub you know and investment from the from the artist as well. You know, I've been in situation where the guy was supposed to go to Australia and then I go I go to the club and I see him there. I said, what are you doing? I decided not to go. I said, what? How can you decide like that at the last minute? You know, now people gonna talk about you.
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
You know, it's like now you've got this image of somebody that is not reliable. So all those type of things, you know, that's important. It happens everywhere. It happens everywhere. Yeah.
Jakob
Hm. And has that something to do? Yeah, but is that is that ex extra prevalent in the continent because they haven't been exposed to what it takes or like w what where does this come from?
yoel
I can't generalize and I can't generalize across the different countries. So you're gonna find a lot of artists in the continent who's gonna say, please put me in that situation, I'll do it, I'll kill it, you know. And so I used to say it has change, it has changed. I used to say in South Africa the life in South Africa for in general is sweeter than in some other markets, but also when you have some success as an artist.
Jakob
Yeah.
yoel
You can have a quite a good life here. You can have quite a good life, make some, you know, good enough money to live well. And you like to be you know, so you don't have the real the same incentives of trying saying, I need to go outside to survive, I need to go outside because, you know, when you the Nigerians have that. I'm not saying everybody, but the Nigerians have this eagerness and focus on I want I'm gonna go in wherever I need to go to make it work. And they this seems to me that it's more of a drive, and maybe I'm wrong, but there's more of a drive than in some other markets. Also more of opportunities as well. So I think success breeds success. When you look at black coffee opening up, then you've got Shimzad, then you've got other DJs from South Africa today coming on the Afro House market and Sam from South Africa. It br you know, it has a value. The Ama Piano for the last five years development has helped also to see more and more South African traveling. And that changes. You know, it's like I guess in the in the seventies or early in the eighties when Bjorn Bork was a the biggest tennis player, Then suddenly a lot of Swedish people wanted to be Bjorn Borg. And then we had like four or five of them in the in the eighties and early nineties doing the same because it's so if he does it, I can do it. And you know, I'm proud of that. So it's kind of like same thing with football, same thing with other sports. And I think that brings you more and more confidence in doing it and say, okay, maybe I should spend that time. I've seen Uncle Waffle touring, I've seen Tyler Turing, I've seen, you know, Black Coffee doing it and
Jakob
Yeah.
Jakob
Makes sense.
yoel
And it's not just money, it's also being more ambitious.
Jakob
Hmm. Yeah, and it and it takes some time to inspire that, you know, thirteen, fourteen year old kid to they come to the place where they can take a shot at it as well. One thing I need to cover in this episode because obviously as one of the big things we concern ourselves with is music technology and selling companies. Like oftentimes when you build a company, you need to sell a company. If that's, you know, catalogs or if it's technology or if it's whatever, that oftentimes is a liquidation event that's very important for many stakeholders. So maybe what is your perspective on the opportunity of selling tech or business in music in Africa? For example, AfriCory, like do you believe that is worth something for international buyers and will that be a positive thing for the owners?
yoel
I mean, look, we sold it to an international buyer, and I think they're happy with it. The story with AfriCore is the in 2019-2020, 2019, or late 2018, I started to feel that some the majors and some big international distributor like Believe and you know 1RPM and others. We're starting to spend more and more money and investment in the continent and of course empire. And I felt that if some of our biggest clients were to leave us, and with the fact that we didn't have that fuel, which means investment, We could completely become a corner shop and not being able to be as important as we aimed to be at that time because we were there from one of the first companies in the continent. So I needed to get additional funds. I needed to get additional funds to take us to the next level. So the deal that we did at that time, and that's why I did I did sorry. And that's why let me annoying the people, they're gonna call back in a second, so let me make sure it's there. So sorry. So it w it was important for us to get some investment, but I also knew that I didn't want to sell at that time. That was too early. We didn't we didn't capitalize, we didn't realize the potential that we aimed to do at that time. So once we got the initial investment. Funny enough, three months later we got a biggest hit in the history of the company. So everything happened at the same time. The hit will have happened anyway because, you know, we released it in December. We're starting to get the momentum. There was a with one with one of the clients, one of the label that we were distributing, and we started to work very closely with them. And that was Jerusalem, so Master KG. So suddenly we got investment and we got the success.
yoel
And I know very well that when you get success, that's when you need to work harder. So success breeds success. So yes, we now we were already in the hands of Warner. But the way we structure the deal, they will become majority. They could convert a loan and they become majority later on. So we I kind of maybe fast track the conversion a bit more by a year or two. And by then the company was majority owned by Warner, so we were now under the Warner system and the integration and so forth. For Warner, they didn't have in many countries in a very strong presence in Africa. Interestingly enough, this is a very good case. Warner as a group. Before investing in chocolate city and investing with us had signed had some ne never had a lot of success in Africa but they've had success with African artists. They had of course they've got Siked had Bernaboy they had Fields they were there were quite a few Omalay in the US as well so they had some interesting success without being present in the continent we in
Jakob
Mm.
yoel
As the market in South Africa was starting to grow and we can see it was growing, we brought them a very strong market share because we're leading or we were you know, we were quite well positioned in South Africa. So for one it was a great investment. It was so great that it decided now the old local music strategy was going to be handled by AfriCori and they will be focusing on international and helping AfriCori to take African music to the rest of the world, which was kind of the idea. And I think the reason why we did a deal we wanted besides investment is we're looking at opportunities. How can we take some of the clients that we have internationally? So this international export or focus has always been very important. And actually if we didn't if we were not part of Warner, the next step for us would have been to open offices in the US, in London, Paris and you know somewhere else in Europe, or maybe in Seoul. But you know, that was always very, very important and requirement. Yeah. That it does it answer your question?
Jakob
Mm.
Jakob
It does, it does. And do you believe that was a good journey for you? Was it was it worth the effort, the return investment for you pushing me?
yoel
Okay, thank you.
yoel
It's funny we like to redo history sometimes. As I said, I remember where we were and where we could be if something bad happened, and my job was to really anticipate that. At that time was I think the best deal we could do. Of course, when you start to get more and more successful and it becomes a business which now you can play more with because there's more revenue, there's more, you know. Money to play with and invest, then suddenly you said, maybe it would have been better to stay independent now that we can do it. But wanna help us to be in that position. Through the investment, through some of the support. I've enjoyed the journey and I'm not I'm not talking shit or whatever it is. Yes, I could have made much more money, possibly. I could have also maybe achieved different things, but At least we did it. You know, at least we did it. I think we did well. I know my in initial investor is happy. I'm I think it's great to have done that and be able to do it. And I think did I learn? Yes, I learned a lot. Will I do it differently? I might do it differently. Next time. And try and try not to try not to, you know, try to find investment in a way that I don't need to have a major or you know, invest at that stage. Because with you know, once you once one of the major invests in your business, you know that the only exit strategy is that major, even though they minority shareholders. You're not gonna sell to another major when you've got one already investing or somewhere else. So that was quite clear and we knew it. But on the other side I think
yoel
I'm I think there's if I had to restart the same type of business, it's almost better not to have an Afrika and to start from scratch.
Jakob
Hmm. Y'all, it's been a great conversation and we're sort of closing in on the hour now. I've learned a lot and I could speak for hours more. I have so many questions that I have that I haven't even gotten to, but you know, it as you it takes a lot of episodes to get there and I'm happy to speak with also some of the other people that you that you mentioned. But y'all, it's been a pleasure so far and I'm very interested to follow your work now going forward as well. But what are what is gonna be your biggest focus the years to come?
yoel
So there's two there are two directions that I'm looking at. One is One direction I mean of course one is the export, but exporting music but also maybe other cultural, you know, aspect in the continent. So art and, you know, possibly films and, you know, o other area of that. But definitely export is It's what makes the most sense business-wise and also makes the most sense because I'm very excited to be able to showcase things that I love about the continent. Fashion, you know, whatever. There's a few things. And the second thing which kind of links to that is and I don't know how to I'm working on it, it's very, very early stage. I've been thinking. Is to be kind of a accelerator and fund to cultural entrepreneur in the continent. So again, it's not just to invest into companies or individuals, but also support them. And I think there's much more of a need of support here than maybe other places. And that could be kind of a hybrid model which I think I know exists elsewhere, but to accelerate Talent and I see talent. I see a lot of talent. And sometimes you feel like let me take you let's go together and let's open some doors and let's see, because let you do the job, but there are maybe ways to do it, like even in terms of songwriters. Let me open you for to work with other songwriters outside of the continent or in the continent. And those type of things we're starting to do already, but it's kind of like accelerating the
yoel
That type of work and companies but and of course the African music rights, there's a few little things but yeah I'm looking into that. You know it's an interesting place to be and I didn't mention AI but you know it's at the center of everything. Yeah. I don't know if I answered really all your question. I'm sorry. I don't know if it was good enough or not. Okay.
Jakob
Anything.
Jakob
No it this is great, you'll like I love that you were on. This is a brilliant episode and I'm sure all the listeners right now also feels the same. But thank you thank you so much for being on today.
yoel
You're very welcome. I look forward
Jakob
We'll talk soon again.
yoel
For the future of Africa. Yeah. Thank you very much. Bye bye.
Jakob
Absolutely. Just stopping the recording.
