September 17, (THEWILL) – Unlike the past, Nigerian musicians no longer solely on album sales and radio play to earn a living. Nowadays an artiste gets royalty in different ways. With the advent of streaming services like Boomplay, Apple Music, and Spotify, artistes can now earn money based on the number of streams their songs get on these platforms. This shift in the music industry has significantly impacted both up-and-coming musicians and established stars. It has helped to make the music listening experience more accessible and enjoyable for their fans worldwide. With that being said, most older generation artists still struggle to find a balance between what was obtainable in their time and what is obtainable today. Michael Stephens better known as Ruggedman, whose music career began professionally in 1999 recently revealed why he never earned royalties throughout his 24-year-old music career.
“Royalties? Unfortunately, when I finally learned about iTunes, I said let me go and put my album there. I now found out that the album has been there since. I am one of those they used as in ‘‘them don chop me finish before I know say I fit chop am’ (SIC). There was no social media. We were the OGs before Instagram. That’s one of the reasons I have decided to do some new wave music because there’s a lot of money in the industry. I wasn’t getting the royalties. That one has gone already. People went behind me and did it. They had already milked that,” he said.
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