When Afrobeats label Mavin announced a milestone of 6bn worldwide streams last August, we wondered if it might be a spur for one of the big global labels to get its wallet out and buy or invest in the company.
Barely six months later, they have. Universal Music Group has continued its frenetic dealmaking start to 2024 with the announcement of a majority investment in Mavin Global pending regulatory approval. It hopes to close the deal by the end of Q3 this year.
Mavin is the label whose artists include Rema, whose "Calm Down" was a global hit in 2023, and Ayra Starr, whose reputation has also been growing rapidly beyond the label’s homeland of Nigeria.
“The Mavin team’s full-service offering in Nigeria will be amplified through UMG’s global network of labels and businesses by the investment,” is how UMG described its plans for the company now.
The pair already work together: Mavin is distributed internationally outside Africa by UMG’s Virgin Music Group, while several of its artists are working with its US labels: Starr with Republic, for example, and Lifesize Teddy with Interscope.
The deal will see Mavin founder and CEO Don Jazzy and COO Tega Oghenejobo continuing to run the company, with UMG saying they will “maintain autonomy over its strategy and future talent development”.
“With our proven history of collaborations within the UMG family, we have a strong belief that they are the ideal partner for the next phase of our growth, given the diversity and potential of our business,” said Oghenejobo in a statement.
“Our criteria for identifying partners is straightforward: great artists, great entrepreneurs, great people,” added UMG boss Sir Lucian Grainge. “With Don Jazzy, Tega, the Mavin Global team and their artist roster, we’ve found ideal partners with whom to grow together.”
Investment firm Kupanda Capital will remain a minority investor and strategic advisor in the business once the transaction closes, although another investor, TPG, will fully exit as part of the deal.
The news cements Afrobeats’ continued rise to global prominence. ‘Calm Down’ became the first African artist-led track to reach 1bn streams on Spotify last September.
Spotify had previously said that Afrobeats tracks were streamed 13.5bn times on its service in 2022, and that Nigerian artists had generated around $14.2m of Spotify payouts that year.
In September, Apple Music also said that streams of African tracks (including, but not exclusively Afrobeats) had grown at a rate four times more than overall streams on its service.
This announcement came as Burna Boy’s latest album broke a number of records on Apple Music. He also became the first African artist to reach 1bn streams on another service, Audiomack, which has a growing audience in Africa.
As for Universal Music Group, today’s announcement is just the latest in a succession of deals to start 2024.
The company has renewed its licensing agreement with Chinese DSP Tencent Music; acquired Latin label Saban Music Latin and the catalogue of South Asian-music label Oriental Star Agencies; teamed up with music organisation DGMC to build a ‘music city’ in the United Arab Emirates; paid $240m for a 25.8% stake in music catalogues buyer Chord Music Partners; and backed live-shopping firm Ntwrk’s $108.6m acquisition of youth-culture brand Complex.
