Mavin World SVP of A&R Talks Running with Rema & Ayra Starr

African song is pop song. The long-awaited creation of the most productive African song efficiency class on the 2024 Grammys, when Burna Boy become the primary African artist to accomplish right through the awards rite, is evidence of its plain cultural dominance. And U.S. superstars like Chris Brown, Travis Scott and Beyoncé are achieving out to African artists like Lojay, Tyla and Tems, respectively, for hit collaborations. 

Alternatively, Western popularity most effective scratches the outside of what’s coming in combination at the continent. Track intake in Sub-Saharan Africa greater by means of 114% within the final 12 months, in keeping with Spotify’s annual Wrapped knowledge document. Burna Boy, Wizkid and Davido’s best towns on Spotify are all of their local Nigeria, solidifying Africa’s basis to release homegrown song to the remainder of the sector. And no different label in Africa has been as a success in doing in order Nigeria’s Mavin World. 

Based in 2012 by means of mythical Nigerian manufacturer and govt Don Jazzy, Mavin World has been instrumental in making Afrobeats considered one of Nigeria’s biggest exports. With Tiwa Savage and Wande Coal because the label’s first artists, Mavin remains to be thought to be an incubator and launchpad for a wholly new era of Afropop stars. Its present roster is bigger than ever with 12 artists: There’s Johnny Drille together with his alternative-folk sound, Ladipoe who leans into rap, and Lifesize Teddy, whose Afro-fusion mix speaks to Gen Z. 

And naturally, there’s Rema and Ayra Starr, two artists signed as teenagers in 2019 who’ve transform the label’s marquee stars and commanded the sector’s consideration. Rema’s 2022 unmarried “Calm Down” from his debut album Rave & Roses is likely one of the maximum commercially a success Afrobeats songs of all time, achieving No. 3 at the Billboard Sizzling 100, with the assistance of a Selena Gomez-assisted remix, and become the primary monitor by means of an African artist to hit a thousand million streams on Spotify. And Starr’s 2022 unmarried “Rush” earned the Afropop singer her first Grammy nomination in the most productive African song efficiency class.

Each artists additionally launched their seminal sophomore albums this 12 months, Rema together with his bold HEIS and Starr along with her coming-of-age The 12 months I Grew to become 21. Rema’s gothic tribute to his homeland of Benin Town used to be created in accordance with the backlash from his sold-out, headlining display at London’s O2 Area final November. He rode an enormous bat – a nod to Benin Town’s most well liked animal – and wore a duplicate of Queen Idia’s well-known masks in connection with historic artifacts, referred to as the Benin Bronzes, that had been looted by means of British troops in 1897 and are these days being held on the British Museum. In the meantime, Starr’s sophomore album calls upon a global meeting of artists – from Nigerian boulevard pop stars Seyi Vibez and Asake to Brazilian pop celebrity Anitta to American R&B singer-songwriters Coco Jones and Giveon – for give a boost to as she examines her transition into womanhood and navigates love, loss and lifestyles.

However there’s been one user in the back of the improvement of each artists: Rima Tahini Ighodaro, senior vice president of A&R and creatives at Mavin. Guiding artists via what she refers to as “world-building,” the Lebanese-Sierra Leonean govt leads the 10-person A&R staff that works with the label’s roster to each notice and reimagine their inventive imaginative and prescient for his or her song – putting in place studio classes and liaising with the label’s different departments to maximise the artists’ complete doable.

“With Rema, I went on maternity go away and he got here to my space to seek advice from me once I had my child and used to be like, ‘Right here’s my album.’ I didn’t even know when he had recorded it!” she tells Billboard. 

Whilst critics have described HEIS as having a depressing power in comparison to the lighter, Afropop sound of his previous subject material like his step forward 2019 unmarried “Dumebi,” Tahini Ighodaro argues “[he’s] extra like experimenting with the previous and what has all the time been true to Afrobeats to beginning a brand new sound. For an artist like Rema, who is aware of precisely what he desires and wishes to discover his doable totally, and frequently pushes the limits, he all the time wishes a relied on soundboard.” 

His experimentation paid off, and HEIS earned Rema his first Grammy nomination for easiest international song album on the upcoming 2025 awards display. “Closing 12 months used to be considered one of his greatest years in his profession and we overlooked that Grammy second… however there’s a pronouncing in my tradition: ‘prolong isn’t denial,’” says Tahini Ighodaro, in connection with “Calm Down” lacking the eligibility duration for the 2024 Grammys. “HEIS is a undertaking that used to be private to him, he led numerous the creativity within the song and stood by means of it even because it were given backlash. It used to be a tradition surprise in numerous techniques, however I’m glad that he used to be known for the entire [album] versus simply a well-liked unmarried.” 

Rema’s boundary-pushing means additionally rings true for Starr, who has advanced sonically in addition to conceptually. Her Afropop, Afrobeats and Nigerian folks sensibilities in previous tasks have molded the sound of a well-rounded international pop big name. “Making 21 used to be so other from [Starr’s debut album] 19 and Bad as a result of she’s grown such a lot as an individual [and] as an artist,” Tahini Ighodaro says. “She in point of fact is aware of how she desires to inform her tale and desires to be at the vanguard of the entirety, making sure selections the place she would possibly have prior to now, because of age and inexperience, leant into A&R steerage, when it got here to operating with manufacturers and different artists and crafting her sonic path.” 

On HEIS and The 12 months I Grew to become 21, Tahini Ighodaro followed an much more hands-on means, “giving comments at the song, serving to the artists keep up a correspondence their inventive imaginative and prescient to the groups concerned and making sure that their imaginative and prescient used to be correctly carried out,” she says, whilst concurrently caring for different duties like “clearances, characteristic control and commissioning the proper inventive groups to paintings on paintings, song movies, photoshoots.” Within the extended chaos of striking in combination an album, Tahini Ighodaro additionally served as a grounding drive for each artists. “Every so often the artists overlook what they to begin with dedicated to or they deviate or possibly get of their heads. I used to be all the time on standby to reel them again in,” Tahini Ighodaro explains. “Creatives want a first responder.”

Six years since she got to work at Mavin, Tahini Ighodaro has discovered that the task comes to extra than simply creating the musical path of an artist’s profession. It’s additionally about empowering an artist to create their very own trajectory, and she or he doesn’t take that accountability evenly. “That is necessarily a other people industry – and in case you don’t have empathy, a top tolerance for operating with several types of other people and emotionally making an investment into their imaginative and prescient, then it simply received’t paintings. No matter song is made is a byproduct of the way they’ve been made to really feel,” she says. 

Tahini Ighodaro makes use of this similar empathy-led means when creating artists who undergo Mavin Academy, which develops newly signed artists for 2 years via vocal coaching, are living efficiency observe, branding, inventive path and media coaching at Mavin’s headquarters in Lagos, prior to the label formally introduces them to the sector upon their “commencement.” This strategy of grooming and preparation, relationship again to Motown’s mythical artist construction division within the mid-Sixties, have been a mainstay of the pop song system prior to the present generation of in a single day, viral luck that steadily thrusts younger artists into the highlight. “The Academy is focused at the intentionality of establishing an artist [and] their craft. Artists come and move – we name it ‘blow’ in Nigeria, once they arise off one hit or a few bangers,” she explains. The Academy is greater than a one-stop store for making an African celebrity; it serves as a reminder of Mavin’s legacy of establishing a basis at house, which is a habitual theme in Tahini Ighodaro’s lifestyles and ascent within the African song scene. “It’s about shaping effectively rounded artists that experience one thing to carry directly to, even after their courting with Mavin ends,” she says. 

A deep sense of satisfaction for the continent is one thing she has worn on her sleeve since she used to be designing and promoting conventional garments at diasporic gatherings and occasions at Brandeis College in Waltham, Mass., the place she studied industry and economics. “I all the time knew I sought after to paintings in Africa,” she says. “I didn’t suppose The united states wanted me, as a result of Africa is the place I’d really feel a way of objective.” After graduating in 2016, she landed her first task as a senior affiliate at Kupanda Capital, a mission capital company interested by incubating, capitalizing and scaling pan-African corporations. “I used to be so excited as it aligned with how I sought after to come back again to the continent.” Tahini Ighodaro says.

When she joined Kupanda, the company used to be taking a look into making an investment in media and leisure corporations in Africa at a pivotal time when the song used to be exploding into the U.S. mainstream – suppose Davido’s “Fall,” which won traction on U.S. radio and reached No. 13 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, or Wizkid’s characteristic on Drake’s “One Dance,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 at the Sizzling 100 and become the primary tune to achieve a thousand million streams on Spotify. She moved to Lagos in 2017 to paintings on Kupanda Holdings’ multi-million-dollar funding in Mavin World (Kupanda Holdings is a three way partnership between Kupanda Capital and TPG Expansion). 

Because of that deal, Tahini Ighodaro constructed relationships with Mavin CEO Don Jazzy and COO and president Tega Oghenejobo and its artists. Whilst she used to be to begin with introduced directly to paintings at the due diligence of the deal between Kupanda and Mavin, she later grew curious about operating at the inventive facet of the label and having a extra direct affect at the artists’ careers. When the director of A&R position become to be had later that 12 months, Don Jazzy and Oghenejobo idea she will be the absolute best have compatibility, largely because of her empathy and skill to take care of such a lot of other characters. “Don Jazzy and Tega may just see how excited I used to be operating in this facet of the industry. I all the time idea that this position used to be completely about song, however they defined that it’s extra about having a top tolerance for operating with others, in addition to a just right eye,” she explains.

Tahini Ighodaro’s senior position at Mavin is a good signifier of accelerating illustration of ladies in African song, which she says is far better than it used to be when she first began however argues there’s nonetheless extra paintings to be carried out. Whilst pointing to robust ladies – like Bose Ogulu, Burna Boy’s momager, and Wizkid’s supervisor Jada Pollock – as one of the crucial few visual feminine executives, she admits navigating a male-dominated box “felt lonely on the time, now not having a counterpart in the similar business who you’ll want to have a look at as a mentor or as a way to carve your profession trail.” When she got to work at Mavin, her colleague at Kupanda Capital, Jordan Slick, additionally joined the label as its director of operations (she later become Mavin’s advisory and board observer). Tahini Ighodaro says they had been the primary ladies to paintings there, and 6 years later, there are 3 different ladies in senior roles on the corporate. “Ladies are in most definitely greater than part of the manager roles at Mavin – operations, finance, felony and industry affairs,” she says.

Tahini Ighodaro could also be constructive in regards to the greater alternative for significant funding into Africa’s musical legacy. In February, Common Track Workforce purchased a majority stake in Mavin World, aiming to “boost up Mavin’s strategic development” by means of specializing in two projects: nurturing ability via Mavin Academy and creating the following era of African song executives via its govt management program. Along with the pan-African aspirations, Tahini Ighadoro has her eyes on global domination past the continent. 

“The eye from the most important markets is so thrilling – taking a look at puts like India, the place ‘Calm Down’ used to be some of the greatest tracks final 12 months, is sure,” she displays. “We wish to proceed to wreck boundaries and construct on that. However the actual North Megastar is constructing on our native business [and] channeling the worldwide momentum into forged foundations that may pour into Africa’s inventive economic system.”