“A&R isn’t just about the music, it takes sensitivity and care and the will to make things happen.” – Music business worldwide

The MBW series “Inspiring Women” features female leaders who have made itgh down the ranks of the company and highlight their career path – from their breakthrough career to the managerial responsibilities they now fulfill. Inspiring Women is supported by Ingrooves.

Nigeria-based Mavin Records broke out of their home market this year with a big hit from Rema. To calm oneself downwhich charted in the UK (#10), US and various European territories.

The track was upgraded with a remix featuring Selena Gomez, and Rema has since collaborated with British talents AJ Tracey, Jae5 and Skepta, as well as US rapper Offset von Migos.

Mavin’s Ayra Starr has also garnered global attention with a MOBO nomination, endorsement by Spotify’s RADAR and chart topping in the US.

The two artists are examples of where Mavin’s director of A&R, Rima Tahini, wants to take the label’s entire roster going forward.

“We have a roster of eight artists right now, so six more to really get on the global stage. We want to work on that,” she tells us in a detailed interview below.

Founded in 2012 by artist and producer Don Jazzy, Mavin received a multi-million dollar investment from Kupanda Holdings in 2019.

A senior associate at Kupanda Capital, Tahini has worked with Mavin since 2016 and officially joined the Lagos-based music company in 2018. Prior to investing, her career included roles in business and energy.

“I have always been a creative person and wanted to work with young people [help them achieve] their dreams,” she says.

“Working with the artists at Mavin brought out this creative side in me that I put aside for a while. A&R isn’t just about the music, it takes empathy and care and the will to make things happen.”

Today, Tahini leads an A&R team of 10 and has seen the company grow from fewer than 10 to around 70 employees.

Mavin has global partnerships with Universal’s Virgin Music Label & Artist Services for Rema, and with Platoon and Apple for white label distribution for the rest of his roster.

Here we chat with Tahini about the lessons of her career, the role of A&R and the challenges of working in the Nigerian music industry.

In the four years you’ve been in this role, what have you learned about what it takes to be a good A&R?

My job has always been to bring structure to the artists’ working lives and to make a plan for the year with them. In the beginning it was such an impossible task – it’s really difficult to give structure to creatives. I had relevant skills from my work in investing, but I needed to learn how to communicate with creatives and help them understand that there is this other side of making music. Having empathy and understanding who they are is really important, as is knowing what motivates them.

I have also learned to take an artist’s raw talent and expand it to reach a wider audience beyond Nigeria. We want to make money and our industry is still pretty small, Afrobeats is the overarching genre that everyone knows and we don’t always sign Afrobeat artists directly. So it’s about making sure artists have the confidence to maintain what they’re very good at, but also be able to find the narratives and belonging to enhance their appeal.

“Giving feedback to artists without making them feel like you’re criticizing or not supporting them is a very delicate process.”

There’s a very fine line in this process, that [if crossed], can cause artists to drift away from what they do best, confuse them, or lose confidence. Giving them feedback without making them feel like you are criticizing or not supporting them is also a very delicate process. You must have a high level of emotional intelligence.

I also learned that an artist is beyond the recording. What people see is very important and building the brand is part of the A&R function. Ayra Starr was in development for a year and a half before launching. We designed every single image and every image that we wanted to show people [hear and] see before she got out. You don’t want an artist to come out like they don’t know what they’re doing. Especially in the age of social media, artists have to be convincing and have a story. It’s all part of what I do with my team – right down to style guides, brand bibles and interview training.

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your career?

As someone who now leads a team of 10, I’ve learned that at the end of the day, people are people. No matter what you pay them, no matter what work you think they should love and do, you need to appeal to their human side. You have to like each other to work in a professional environment. Especially in the work we do, which is all about passion and giving 110% because it’s not nine-to-five, it becomes part of your life. So it is very important that you are considerate. If you manage to get your team enthusiastic about the work, you win because they will do everything they can. A sense of ownership and a sense of being a part of building something is also key.

“As a manager, you have to set a good example. I’ll come down and do the work with you. I don’t want to be a figurehead, I like to get into the details, which helps me to keep an overview.”

As a leader, you must lead by example. I’ll come down and do the work with you. I don’t want to be a figurehead, I like to get into the details, which helps me to keep an overview. Making sure you’re thorough has worked for me – the smallest details can cause problems. Everything is timely, if you waste a few hours it could have a domino effect. This helps me to be very organized and efficient.

Working on the continent, I’ve learned that I’d rather be at the end of the value chain. Coming to the music from the investment side, there wasn’t much to show – there wasn’t a lot of numbers or structure. Afrobeats weren’t the coolest thing back then. Looking back now the guys I worked for were focused on what they could create, they had this vision of knowing they wanted to create value, although the numbers don’t make sense right now. I really admired that and it’s something we do all the time at Mavin. We always start with brand new artists. We’ve started six in my career now and to see someone like Rema go from that young kid with no career to the level he’s at now… it just takes that leap of faith.

What are the special challenges of working in the Nigerian music industry?

It is still very young and that brings with it many challenges. A lot of things aren’t established yet, so building around the music is still a struggle, even though it’s better than it was a few years ago. On the live side, we don’t have enough venues to do live shows, they’re not big enough or they don’t have enough infrastructure to do it. And ticketing platforms are very limited. For publication, the collection point does not work, so you either have to sign with an international publishing arm [a company] or artists, songwriters and producers are simply not signed.

“[The Nigerian music market] is still very young and that entails many challenges.”

people yet [illegally] Download music and there are no strict laws to help with copyright issues and IP protection. Music streaming platforms subscription fees have gotten cheaper, but data is still expensive. There’s all this difficulty growing our streaming and touring numbers and making sure we’re not losing money all the time. Business in the country is not always the best and the support that the government should have for the industry is still being discussed and worked out.

What would you like to see that would improve all of these problems?

More support from the country’s leadership for the entertainment industry. To really sit down and think, ‘This is a gem, people are really getting interested in Afrobeats in the world right now, we’ve never been in this position before, how can we capitalize on this? How do we build it and make it permanent?’

Hopefully the world doesn’t move that fast, but it does – different genres pop up, become a thing, and after a while they’re not the thing anymore. So we need to make sure we seize and build on the moment we have, and we need the support of the government and other companies and brands to make that happen. I don’t think that concern is there now.

The industry brings in a lot of money, but most of our income comes from abroad. So how do we make data cheap, how do we work with Apple or Spotify to make sure people can stream? There are a lot of things that I think can be worked on from a political point of view.

If you could go back to the beginning of your career and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

I would tell myself to trust the process and believe in myself a bit more. When you are younger you are anxious and skeptical and think you need to plan for the next five years of your life. I moved, studied business and accounting and then went into business and energy and now I can add up everything that brought me here. So trust the process because not everyone will have a linear path.

“You just have to work hard at what’s right in front of you.”

You just have to work hard at what’s right in front of you. For now, that’s what I’m doing, I’m going to be the best at it and I’m going to work hard. I can probably be a little prescient and visionary in a year or two, but if you’re overly anxious about planning, you can lose confidence and get distracted.

What about future plans and ambitions for Mavin?

world domination! We want to keep building and building more global stars. It’s great that we have Rema and Ayra Starr, we have a roster of eight people right now so six more artists to really get on the global stage. We want to work on that. We want a robust roster, we want to discover new talent in the industry, grow Mavin into a global label and be part of building the systems, the infrastructure around the music [in Nigeria].

“We want a solid roster, we want to discover new talent, grow Mavin into a global label and help build the systems, the infrastructure around the music [in Nigeria].”

After all, we want to penetrate other verticals in the industry. If nobody does it, you have to do it yourself and I feel like the opportunity is there. We want to focus on the music first, but I see us branching out in that direction [areas like branding and touring] in the future.

The MBW series “Inspiring Women” features female leaders who have made itgh down the ranks of the company and highlight their career path – from their breakthrough career to the managerial responsibilities they now fulfill. Inspiring Women is supported by Ingrooves.music business worldwide