Music entrepreneur Chidi Uzoeshi strongly believes his entertainment firm Maze Music Publishing will be among the structures that will determine the future of the Nigerian music business.

In a recent chat with The Nation, Uzoeshi explains how he intends to administer a catalogue of more than 5000 songs under his Maze Music Publishing.

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He said, “Like every good business that adheres to corporate governance, the structure is essential in the success story and this brings to mind one of the most important aspects of this ambitious project which is employment. Hundreds of people will be on deck to scale this business and eventually thousands. I intend to set up units of subsidiaries that will administer a total of 150,000 songs per company so attention to detail is paid to each song and catalogues are fully monetized and the full potential of these assets are reached including managing their cash flow.” Continuing, Uzoeshi said, “the business model approach is in sustainable earnings uncorrelated to global capital markets, with sources of income from across the spectrum of music consumption patterns made up of millions of microtransactions such as streaming, physical purchase, downloading, synchronization, performance, licensing and merchandising.”

In conclusion, Uzoeshi advised artists intending to sign recording deals to make sure they have seasoned managers to represent their interests.

He said, “My advice to any artiste who wants to sign with a record label is to make sure they have a seasoned manager who represents their interest or a lawyer so the implications of their contract are well spelled out and agreement signed in good faith. The lawyer or manager will also be able to advocate for clauses that can get the labels to keep to every promise made in the contract within the time frames agreed upon but more important than the contract, the artiste has to be disciplined and focused on the reason he was brought to the table and understand that he or she is in debt once the label starts spending money and that debt needs to be paid back for them to flourish as artistes. They should also take their time now and then to read about the business so they at least have a theoretical understanding of their business which is a start. The conflict between artists and labels is not good for investment indices in the industry, it is bad for everyone.”