Ownership Is the New Anthem: Rethinking Power in Africa’s Music Ecosystem

By Damilola Akinwunmi (Dapper), Founder, Dapper Music & Entertainment

For too long, the African music story has been told through the lens of global validation, charts, features, and co-signs that make the continent’s talent visible. But visibility is not value. The next frontier of African music is not just louder exposure; it’s deeper ownership. If artists can’t own what they create, or share equitably in the system that distributes it, we’re still renting our narrative in an industry we helped build.

The truth is, the shift has already begun. Across Africa, a generation of independent minds are demanding transparency, fair splits, and creative autonomy. Streaming democratised access, yes but it also fragmented power. What we’re building now at Dapper Music & Entertainment is a model that recenters artists as co-architects of the system, not its products. That means building publishing pathways, catalog valuation literacy, and revenue pipelines that live beyond virality. It’s about ownership that’s legal, cultural, and emotional.

The most misunderstood part of “owning your masters” isn’t the legal paper, it’s the mindset. Ownership means you decide the pace of your story. You can evolve, experiment, and even fail without losing yourself. It’s what lets an artist blend street rhythm with orchestra, or document everyday life in ways the mainstream often overlooks. That kind of creative freedom doesn’t come from hype. It comes from structure and from partners who understand that a sustainable label is one that eventually teaches its artists to outgrow it.

But let’s be honest: ownership is expensive, and not just financially. It demands patience, vision, and constant re-education. Many of our artists still come from environments where survival trumps negotiation. That’s why systems must meet them halfway. As an industry, we owe our creators infrastructure that doesn’t exploit ambition, transparent licensing models, local distribution hubs, and enforceable copyright. Until we fix that, the promise of “African excellence” remains a headline, not a heritage.

I believe the future belongs to those who can translate independence into interdependence where artists, executives, and investors collaborate from a place of shared equity, not control. Africa’s sound has already conquered ears; now it must conquer its own systems. And that begins with one word that should echo louder than any hook on the charts; ownership.

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