The ink is dry on Tiwa Savage’s contract at Roc Nation, we can finally celebrate. This weekend, find a club in your city where D’Ussé is less than N20,000 a bottle and pour some for yourself. We did it.
I say “we” because Tiwa’s success feels very personal. In the same year that we watched her cry through her personal struggles, we’ve also watched her smile at her professional victories. Tiwa has been accommodating enough to carry us along every step of the way and all we can do now is be happy with and for Nigeria’s golden girl.
Tiwa Savage Signs Management Deal with Roc Nation (Instagram)
When Tiwa Savage returned to Nigeria almost 6 years ago after giving up on trying to breakout as a solo singer in the US, I’m not sure she envisioned that on her way back into the industry that she left behind, she’d be welcomed with a red carpet by no less a music mogul than Jay-Z standing on the other end. And it’s not only Jigga that has picked an interest in all things Tiwa, Ebro Darden, a respected radio personality has been very intentional about the way he introduces Tiwa, and other Nigerian artists, to the over 100 countries where his daily show on Beats 1 is made available.
Tiwa had a chat with Ebro on Monday this week. Ebro, described Tiwa as “the most popular artist on the African continent”, but Tiwa interjected, “popular female, this sounds like I’m cocky”.
No it doesn’t, it sounds about accurate, especially if you’re considering only contemporary music. The week before that, Ebro christened Tiwa “Africa’s Beyoncé”, to try and contextualize the singer’s popularity to her new audience. Beyoncé is the most popular female artist on the globe, Tiwa Savage is the most popular female artist on the continent. That sounds about accurate too. Personally though, I don’t like the tag, it’s a bit tacky. But if it will make it easier for the world to understand just how phenomenal Tiwa Savage is, then so be it, let’s give the people what they want.
When Tiwa says she is the most popular female artist on the continent, she isn’t making an empty boast. At the start of 2015 Channel O released a list of the “most powerful female singers” in Africa and Tiwa was one of ten. But by the end of the year, the pop star had delivered a baby boy and an amazing (but under-promoted) sophomore album in R.E.D. In 2016, it’s now becoming increasingly clear that it is Tiwa Savage and others.
Last weekend, the singer was the only female headliner at the historic One Africa Music Fest in New York and it wasn’t a huge surprise, some of the biggest Afropop hits in the last five years “Kele Kele Love”, “Love Me (3x)”, “Eminado”, “Without My Heart” etc were Tiwa’s. In the last few weeks specifically, Tiwa’s “If I Start to Talk” and Beyoncé’s “Sorry” have broken the monotony that can be the testosterone-heavy PlayData top 10 charts sometimes. It’s almost surreal that, whether rightly or wrongly, the message in both songs have somehow been linked back to personal issues with their respective spouses.
Away from their personal lives, Beyoncé has one of the most bankable brands in the world of entertainment and is on at least on one of Forbes’ uncountable lists for something every single year. Tiwa is one of the most bankable entertainers in Africa and has the smarts and the looks to be the face of almost any type of business. That’s why she’s been an ambassador for several multinational brands across numerous sectors from oil and gas to beverage to telecoms.
Beyoncé’s stage performances are legendary and she’s incomparable in that department. But Tiwa is electric in her own right and is known to discard of a pair of shoes if they’ll get in the way of a good performance. Both ladies are also half of an entrepreneurial power couple that isn’t (or wasn’t) afraid to do business together. In Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s case, it’s Tidal, a streaming service and in Tiwa and TeeBillz case it’s 323 Entertainment, their jointly-owned record music company.
However, I do not want to pigeonhole this phenomenal singer into the female superstar lane. Ms. Savage is arguably the best qualified artist to become the flagship artist for Roc Nation on the African continent across all genders – male, female or Caitlyn. Besides her popularity, she’s as professional as professional singers come. Tiwa possesses a degree in professional music from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Having spent more than a decade in the game, she’s done every singing job from backup singer to songwriter to recording and performing artist. She’s worked with the likes of Mary J Blige, Monica and Chaka Khan and so on. Her background and polish also means she’ll be more relatable for Westerners who won’t have to struggle to hear her speak in interviews and she’ll in turn be better suited to adapting to whatever’s required of her expanded audience.
The expansion won’t be one-way either, Roc Nation executive Bee High explained the thinking behind strategically setting up shop in Nigeria in a recent interview –
For us, going to South Africa was basically useless because the majors were there. It made more sense to go to Nigeria because that’s where film and music and everything else is happening.
Nigeria controls 75% of the music that’s being played on the continent so going to into Nigeria made more logical sense.
This is instructive because Roc Nation is a multifaceted company that interacts seamlessly with Jay’s other ventures in tech, liquor and so on. D’Ussé Cognac was officially introduced to Nigeria last year, it is possible that you could see D’Ussé bottles right beside Pepsi bottles in Tiwa’s next video. You could also see Nigeria become only the second country in Africa where Tidal becomes available and Tiwa’s third project could be released exclusively on that platform. These are the types of opportunities for brand alignment that Roc Nation sees as it introduces itself to Africa. And for Tiwa, she has been given the perfect opportunity to bridge the two worlds that she’s so familiar with.
But this is not all about Ms. Savage, the singer has shattered a few glass ceiling and stereotypes for women in African music in general too. Besides the obvious doors that her signing a management deal with an international company could present for her colleagues, Tiwa has shown us that being ultra-sexy in a super conservative society doesn’t equate to slutty and talentless. She took the bullets on her body so that similarly talented singers such as Seyi Shay, Victoria Kimani and Vanessa Mdee could be free to sing and expose theirs if they so wish.
Tiwa Savage in the “Wanted” video (Vevo)
One of the reasons why businesses run away from investing long-term in female artists is that their career path can be altered more significantly by marriage, family and raising children than men. It’s a shame that it seems like Tiwa couldn’t have it all – but at least she serves as an example for those who do not want to conform to society’s pressure to automatically prioritize family if and when, God forbid, that time comes in their career. I know this is not the kind of advice that your pastor will give you but this is real life, not make-believe.
Also, even though she was initially guilty of this but Tiwa later showed us that entertainers do not have to hide their relationship status just to please an audience that won’t be there to fight with you when all that FBI work makes your Significant Other uncomfortable. And if you’re unfortunate and ish hits the fan outside the house because you went public with your personal life in the first place, be bold, be intentional, control your narrative. She’s also shown all of us, men and women, that age is no barrier to our dreams and, perhaps most importantly, that you can triumph over any difficulty in life and bounce back even stronger. Minor setbacks, major comeback.
On the intro of her debut album Once Upon A Time, Tiwa narrated the story of how he she met her (ex?) husband in Hollywood and how he promised to make her a star. It’s partly because Tee Billz kept to his end of the bargain that Tiwa is where she is today. I say partly, because no one made Tiwa Savage. She got here through talent, hard work, dedication and cold, calculative strategy. If Roc Nation keep to their end of this bargain, there’s no telling where Ms. Savage could be tomorrow.