Celebrity Interview- Ayeni The Great Speaks To pulse.ng...«There is no entertainment industry in Nigeria»

The Digital Media Vis-a-Vis The Nigerian Entertainment Industry

“It is growing but there is still a lot to be done. It has helped the business, but because the business is not structured I will say it has also robbed it of a lot of things. There is so much activity going on online with regards to music, movies and many other things but the property owners are not making money from it. People download songs everyday, 4shared is now a very popular site, I can buy MI's album rip it and put it on 4shared and everyone can download it. So there is still no control, the artistes and the right owners are still the losers in terms of intellectual content and property, but in terms of dissemination of information it has helped. If I need to get word out to people now, just by the click of the button it is done, at the same time it is still difficult for me to protect what i don't want everybody to latch on to. There is still that issue of control and rights infringement.

However we are still playing in the small league, in Asia and America you will find out that entire industries are controlled by the digital activities. But I think with more Internet penetration and education, people will continue to know the rights and wrongs, and those who remain adamant will be flushed out.”

The Nigerian Entertainment Industry

“There is no entertainment industry in Nigeria, what we have is a scene with different individuals doing their own thing, Its a chaos. There is no fashion, film or music industry, how do you define an industry? Even the word 'industry' comes from the word 'Industrial' so how can we have a music industry if we cannot manufacture our own CD's, if we cannot distributes our own CD's, same thing for Nollywood.

I always like to use the beverage industry, and I also like to use Nigerian breweries because it is a proudly Nigerian company. What do they sell? beverages, both alcoholic and non alcoholic, but we all can count how many plants they have across the country, if you have been to a plant you will see first hand the process, from research, to raw materials, production, finishing, packaging to distribution. That is an industry, the structures are there.

The Music scene does not have that! Who controls music distribution in Nigeria today? Alaba, they control pricing and distribution. Who brought Nollywood to the position it is today? Idumota marketers! Nollywood was growing at a very good rate with some direction, but because outsiders were the ones controlling it, who were merely traders and not really stakeholders. All they wanted at the time was to make money from the business.

While there is activity going on, I will give kudos to the individuals, musicians, marketers, producers and all those who have invested their money to bring us to the position we are today. However until we build the right institutions, structure, facilities that can hold an industry and keep it in place, we are joking. We will continue to make peanuts and think we are making money, like I love to say “We will continue to wink in the dark” until we are able to enthrone a proper industry.«

»The problem has already been created, due to lack of structuring and limited resources. It is difficult to access information as at when necessary, there are hardly any offices created by the artistes through which one can rightly get information or make proper enquires. This is why I don't blame a lot of reporters, because most times, one will call artistes managers, publicists, send emails and still get no response. So I understand the challenges being faced by the media, but I am of the opinion that the media has done a good job so far, but in all sectors there is still a lot to improve on."