How African Musicians Can Become Moguls — DJ Cuppy

Prominent Disc Jockey, Florence Otedola, popularly known as DJ Cuppy Well, has urged Nigerian and African music makers to take advantage of laid-down structures that can help them become moguls.

Cuppy was a panellist at the Oxford Africa Business Forum put together by her alma mater, the University of Oxford. According to her, in addition to celebrating the fact that African creatives have this global presence, it’s also about getting their foot through the global door and staying there.

“I always get concerned when Africa, or the concept of Africa becomes a trend or it becomes some sort of, I guess, flavour, because it’s life to us. It’s what we know. And in terms of structures, there’s been so many exciting things happening and trust Africans to come up with the most creative ideas.

“We’ve seen partnerships come through. And I think you touched on particularly my country’s exchange rate. These sort of make it very hard to create structure and create lifelong careers and artists without support from the stakeholders that matter.

“So one of the things that I’m very passionate about, you know, I’m known for several different things, but actually, I would say that music isn’t what I’m mostly known for as far as creating it,” she said.

Cuppy noted that despite not putting out music in five years, she somehow has been able to create revenue streams. “But what happens is you start to build a following and you make sure you service them.

“And I think that’s something that African artists need to look at.”