Despite the global dominance of Afrobeats on international streaming charts, African creators are failing to retain the financial windfall of their cultural output due to deeply entrenched architecture gaps and external ownership models within the continent’s creative ecosystem. Industry leaders warn that unless Nigeria and the wider African market rapidly formalise intellectual property frameworks, establish robust local licensing structures, and attract domestic capital, the continent will remain a mere exporter of raw talent while foreign conglomerates extract the primary economic value.
This means Nigeria’s creative industry must shift from celebrating global recognition to building structures that allow creators to retain and multiply the economic value of their work. This was the consensus among industry leaders at the BusinessDay Creative Entertainment Summit 2026.
The summit, themed ‘Ownership is the New Global: Monetising Afrobeats Power Through Equity, Transparency and Strategic Scale’, brought together artists, investors, regulators, and creative entrepreneurs. The discussions focused
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