Alaba might shutdown sooner than we expected

Alaba international market is an electronics market located in Ojo, Lagos State, Nigeria and arguably the largest electronic market in Nigeria. But to every musical related Nigerian, Alaba market is the centre for music business in the Country.

Following recent years the Nigeria music industry has climbed from one level of success to the next level and has been able to attain a reasonably level of admirable success. But bear in mind that the Nigeria music industry wouldn’t have been successful without the help of the Alaba Music promoters and marketers in recent years.

Just fear years ago, Nigeria’s Duo, P-Square, were said to have collected a whopping N50 million for the marketing, duplication and distribution of their new album by a popular Alaba-based marketer. Their “Game Over” album was reportedly sold to Tjoe Enterprise, a major Alaba Marketer, for nationwide distribution for a reported sum of N10 million.

Nigerian music has slowly become the sound of African music, our artistes has grown to dominate the Africa music soil and is gently creeping into the rest of the world. Unknown to many Nigerians the business of music was controlled directly inside the Alaba market, not only that the fortunes and misfortunes of the average artiste irrespective of his talent  is shaped by some individuals who may not necessarily know anything about music. These individuals are the marketers.

Piracy in Alaba to some artiste and Law enforcement agency are punishable crimes. But to many other artistes (especially up-coming) they are benefactors.

These days the music business has drastically shifted to online promoters, as this explains the easy accessible platform that is used to get this music into our electronic playlist devices.

We no longer pay to get a mixtape or pay to buy an album with jackets. Nobody wants to spend money buying CDs when you can easily get one online.

Artist these days have been able to generate a lot of income promoting their music without having to share any percentage with anybody.

Platforms like iTunes, Amazons and other income generating online application has been rated highly by world music.

The online community should be a great concern to Alaba Music businessmen as these I predict will lead to shutdown of Alaba Music business in the nearest future.

The question right now is, what next for the ALABA MUSIC MARKET? 

by Okolo Ifeanyi of boxanalyst.blogspot.com / kaimagist.com  [full_width]