Mr Eazi’s emPawa strikes global deal with Kobalt

Kobalt is a US independent rights management and publishing company. It developed an online portal to provide royalty income and activity to artists, allowing them to manage their rights and royalties directly. The platform does not take ownership of any copyrights.

The partnership between both companies includes publishing administration, creative services and sync for all of emPawa’s catalogue and future works.

“We felt we needed a partner that, together with us, can land a heavy knock on the door in the meaningful exposure and optimisation of African music and writers to the world,” Mr Eazi said.

“This partnership with Kobalt will build on what we have done over the past year, maximising our knowledge of African music, writers, culture and history, now with a global tech-driven partner.”

Founded by the Nigerian Afrobeats musician and entrepreneur, emPawa has enjoyed success with hit singles from artists such as J.Derobie, Killertunes, GuiltyBeatz, Whoisakin and Joeboy, as well as songs recorded by Beyoncé, J Balvin and Bad Bunny, and Major Lazer.

“Mr Eazi and his team have built up an impressive catalogue in a short amount of time,” Kobalt Music CEO Laurent Hubert said. “The excitement from their music and mission should be represented worldwide and we look forward to supporting them through our global creative teams and administration.

"Not only will we have access to the global Kobalt creative team but, via Kobalt’s tech, we can account properly in real time to everyone we represent. It helps us in our mission of accountability to creatives.”

Kobalt’s head of creative UK, Alison Donald, said: “Mr Eazi is a truly inspiring entrepreneur who seeks to empower other artists alongside his own fruitful career. We are very excited to be in business with emPawa and we look forward to helping take emPawa to a larger worldwide audience.”

Meanwhile, Mr Eazi in July launched a $20m fund for African artists alongside a new music distribution platform that calculates artist investability.

He launched emPawa Africa in 2018, which is an incubator programme that provides artists with funding and resources to market their music, access radio and TV airplay, and learn how to become successful entrepreneurs.