NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are the flavour of the month at the moment, with celebrities, artists, musicians and content creators all wanting to take advantage of this trend. NFTs are essentially units of data on a blockchain network, with each unit being unique and corresponding to a unique piece of content, and therefore not interchangeable with another NFT. This is why they are called non-fungible tokens, and they have proved to be an excellent way to provide ownership of rare and unique pieces of content. NFTs have already been selling like hot cakes, with various examples of digital content that has been sold for huge sums of money via NFTs. Some of the biggest celebrities that have already sold NFTs include Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban, Lindsey Lohan and Rob Gronkowski, among many others. This is now filtering down to regional music as well, with the legendary Nigerian rap artist MI Abaga announcing that his upcoming album is likely to be an NFT.
That album, titled ‘A Study on Love’, will be his fifth studio album, but the first one to be sold via an NFT. His last project, called ‘A Study on Self-Worth’, was launched in 2018, and was his first project after a long hiatus. It served to relaunch his career in an impressive manner, and so this upcoming album is also expected to be quite a game-changer, both in terms of its music as well as the use of an NFT to sell it, given the lack of such opportunities so far in the Nigerian entertainment industry. The potential of this innovation is clear to see. The American rock band Kings of Leon recently launched their new album, ‘When You See Yourself’, as an NFT, with that being the first instance of an entire album being sold as an NFT. This was a huge success, raising over $2 million, with over $500,000 of that money being donated to Live Nation’s Crew Nation fund that supports live music crews who have been hit hard by the absence of concerts and live music shows during the pandemic. Thus, there is definitely demand for NFTs among music fans, and with Nigeria being one of the global hubs for cryptocurrency transactions, it can be expected that the Nigerian entertainment industry could also benefit from using this innovation.
The last year has seen the popularity of streaming platforms soar, with the likes of YouTube, Spotify, Netflix and Twitch gaining millions of new subscribers. There has also been a democratization of the process of content creation, with the video sharing platform Tik Tok providing people with the ability to create videos that could potentially reach millions of people, from the comfort and safety of their homes. This has been followed up by the likes of Instagram Reels as well, and shows how content creation is becoming more and more popular today. Thus, this is where NFTs hold appeal as well, since they allow content creators to have complete power and flexibility over their creations, and earn the majority of revenue from sales as well. NFTs are a great way to directly support your favourite artists, with middlemen being cut out completely. Another reason for the popularity of NFTs is the label of exclusivity that they confer, with NFTs usually having exclusive content for those who purchase them. Internet penetration is increasing in Africa, while Nigeria is already on board with cryptocurrencies, so it is not fanciful to assume that the NFT trend will also find a lot of backers in Nigeria. MI Abaga’s album could be the first in a long line of similar content opportunities in the Nigerian entertainment industry.
