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 royalty admin system — matching, tracking, and distributing backend revenues without the bottlenecks plaguing traditional publishers.
For the first two years, the system generated ₦0.
By year three, it flipped on.
From ₦0 to ₦437 Million in 3 Years
Y1–2: Setup. Composer onboarding. Zero revenue.
Y3: First royalties hit — ₦1M
Y4: Sub-pub deal signed. System activation — ₦8M
Y5: ₦21M
Y6: Breakout hit crosses 1B+ streams — ₦345M
Y7: Fully operational — ₦437M
That’s over ₦700M (~$600K) collected so far — and climbing.
It will likely surpass $1M in lifetime payouts this year.
The royalties aren’t manually reconciled spreadsheets. They’re digitally tracked, matched, and paid bi-annually through a bespoke system, giving African composers reliable, verifiable backend income for the first time at scale.
With structured royalty histories now in hand, the company has also begun to offer advances to selected composers — underwriting future earnings like an IP bank.
Why This Matters: Cultural IP Needs Infrastructure Before It Can Become Capital
The last great financialization wave in music wasn’t about selling beats.
It was about structuring rights.
Universal Music, Sony/ATV, Warner Chappell — all became engines because they built enforceable, tradeable backend systems. Without rights infrastructure, music remains culturally powerful but financially stranded.
Africa’s sound economy — Afrobeats, Amapiano, Bongo Flava — is at the same inflection point.
GLMP isn’t just collecting royalties. It’s laying the groundwork for African cultural IP to evolve into a structured, bankable asset class.
Catalogs backed by real payout data. Streaming-backed advances. Royalty securitization.
The opportunity isn’t simply streaming revenues. It’s building the pipes that allow African creators to monetize, finance, and syndicate their rights globally.
GLMP is one of the first companies doing it.
Now the Engine Works; They’re Raising
The company is raising $500K–$1M via a convertible note at a $3M valuation cap.
And it’s raising from a position of strength:
$400K+ in trailing 12-month revenue
Automated bi-annual royalty payments across multiple DSPs
Sub-publishing partnership with a global major
First-mover composer pipeline and exit-proof platform
Advance capabilities underwritten by real payout data
The $3M cap isn’t theoretical. It’s a discount to the real enterprise value already building in the system.
Not Just a Publisher. An IP Platform.
GLMP isn’t building a boutique admin shop.
It’s building a financial chassis for African composers.
In a continent full of sound but light on structure, they’re making backend money flow — not just to labels or artists, but to the composers who built the sound.
And they’re building an infrastructure that could one day finance an entire generation of African cultural exports — on their own terms.
Want to fund or partner with the team building this engine?
Reach out: greenlightmusicpublishing@gmail.com
In a continent full of creators, but light on legal structure, this company is making backend money flow. Not just to labels or artists, but to the composers who actually built the sound.