Green Light, Go: Inside the Rise of Africa’s Royalty Engine

How a Lagos-based publishing company turned royalty chaos into Africa’s most important composer-first infrastructure.

The Problem Isn’t Popularity. It’s Payment.

African music is global. Nigerian producers, Ghanaian beats, South African Amapiano — all circulate daily across TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube. But behind the virality, there’s a brutal truth: the people making the music aren’t collecting the money.

Composers sell beats for ₦200K–₦500K. Flat fees. No backend. No recurring royalty. No participation in international streaming income. And no leverage when their instrumental becomes the hook behind a global hit.

The infrastructure doesn’t exist. Rights aren’t registered. Local CMOs are overwhelmed or underpowered. There’s no functioning publishing stack in place.

Until now.

A Royalty Machine Built in Silence

In 2018, a small team of Nigerian entertainment lawyers and composers decided to change the model. No fanfare. No venture raise. Just execution.

They onboarded composers. Diligenced rights. Built direct sub-publishing relationships abroad. And, critically, developed a fully digitized, automated roya…