Barrister Babatunde Ogala is a legal luminary who is also a business man. He holds the office of Legal Adviser of one of Nigeria’s political parties APC where he plays politics. He talks about some of the miseducation in the music business among the young people who are eking their living from the industry today.

I am an intellectual property lawyer and have been involved with artistes management and promotion. I invested heavily in artistes and we floated a record label. We had about 15 artistes on the label, some of whom became big boys in the industry.

We provided accommodation and all rehearsal facilities and accommodation for the artistes under the label. We arranged and managed shows for them spending millions in investment. We had signed agreements including intellectual property protection and had lawyers assigned to guide and protect them. We registered their original works in their names. We negotiated promotional deals on their behalf as well as concert using ones personal network.
But alas the experiment was disastrous for me. Why you may ask?

1. After we had given them exposure and set benchmarks for their services, the same artistes will go behind us to offer and perform at functions for peanuts without our knowledge. They will collect peanuts to have their live shows recorded and massively reproduced for sale for peanuts on the streets.

2. Another example was an artiste we invested in and when we felt he was good enough to record and commercially, we used some of the best producers and studios at great cost to produce the music. We were set for a grand launch and entry into the market when we heard the music was already being played on the streets. Shock was an understatement. We got the police involved and traced it to the sellers. What was our findings? Another shocker waited us when we found that it was our artiste who we were about to launch that **stole* the CDs of his own music and sold to pirates to reproduce and sell. He stole about 100 CDs of his own work and sold for peanuts to pirates.

It might interest you that it was the same experience with a then big artiste that we invested in. Bad experience all the way from the same artistes that we tried to protect.

What am I saying in all of these? What I’m saying is that from my experience, the artistes and intellectual property owners are their own worst enemies.

More of lack of morality. Deficiency in honesty and integrity as well as extremely warped values.

The same artistes, some of whom we made household names and made money for have today squandered everything and now performing in backwater palmwune joints, living in ghettos and sometimes ravaged by drugs today. They come back begging for rehabilitation and revival of their careers. But unfortunately, with my nasty experience and several millions wasted and flushed down the drain on the ingrates, I have vowed never to go near any business relationship in the industry again except as solicitor or consultant for which I must charge my fees and be paid upfront at commercial rate. The sad memories I have are still around me with hundred of useless CDs, equipments, contracts, books and pictures of those people called artistes.