These conversations about the industry held across a number of seminars, conferences, forums, and social media. Twitter, the microblogging platform is usually the leader of this thought processes online, with everyone and anyone being able to join the fray, with the help of a hashtag and some more.

There have been conversations on a lot of topics including artiste development, business models, the nature of our music, our place in the big picture of global entertainment, and many more. These conversations are driven by industry events and happenings. When the Nigerian Entertainment Conference came this year, the focus was on building a new ‘crude’ to sustain the nation’s economy. When M.I dropped his “Illegal Music 3” mixtape, opinions veered towards the dying state of Nigerian Hip-hop.

Last week, and even up to this point, the conversations have shifted considerably to the business relationship between artistes, labels and their polymorphous nature. There have been issues arising from contract breaches, threats to life, maltreatment, disrespect and many more.

Runtown, Milli, and Skales have dominated the conversations, with each having their specific demon. For Skales’ it was the resurgence of Baseline as a music label that have been on a hiatus after they fired their managers Howie T and Dipo Abdul. The label has had their up and downs, with Saeon leaving them, Aramide having a foot out the door, and Skales, their golden goose, making money that never gets back to them. The label had poured their investment into the acts, before internal dispute took over. But they have taken the bull by the horns, employing legal terror to bring back their sheep into the fold.

Runtown has had to navigate a maze of contract details, terminations and injunctions. He is currently battling his record label boss, Prince Okwudili Umenyiora, and has been the subject of two court injunctions. One from Nigeria, the other from the USA.

Milli on his part has found his way out of his contract at Chocolate City, but he has shed light on a lot of happenings surrounding his exit from the label. According to him, his position had become unbearable after the label led by M.I Abaga milked his talent for other projects, but failed to release his personal projects.

With all of these happening in the space of one week, the conversations have reflected the events, with many sharing their opinion. There have even been overnight experts, springing up at every turn, and taking sides with the best of their thoughts and spilling these forward to the public.

These conversations are not new, neither do they possess novel knowledge about the industry. What they serve to do is to paint a picture of how far we as a collective business need to go, to create a working utopia for the music industry. Our episodic bouts of wisdom can be shallow and reactionary, but it does help to educate us all and improve on industry brilliance.

These conversations are needed and should be encouraged, irrespective of the messenger. Dirt comes from a pig, but that pig has the potential to find diamonds. Let’s all keep the conversations flowing.