Lagos Music Conference begins today

From today, top-level African music industry players will converge in Nigeria for the two-day Lagos Music Conference (LMC), with a mission to connect music industry professionals who do business in Africa.

Africa’s first pan-African music business conference is the first industry event on the continent that brings together music business pacesetters from the continent’s key music markets and a platform for high-profile networking.

Speakers expected at the conference includes the Managing Director for South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa at Universal Music Group, Sipho Dlamini; Global Programming Head for Hip Hop at Spotify, Tuma Basa; Senior Director for A&R at RCA Records, who was responsible for the signing of Kendrick Lamar to Interscope and Bryson Tiller to RCA, Tunji Balogun; the manager credited with Sauti Sol’s recent international success, Marek Fuchs; as well as award-winning artist and songwriter AKA (Vth Season) and General Manager at Sony Music West Africa, Michael Ugwu, among others.

According to a statement by the organisers, LMC consists of a one-day conference with discussions and practical workshops. It also includes the LMC Launch Pad that features workshops for students and recent graduates hoping to enter the music industry.

The final event is the LMC Festival, which will feature the latest crop of the African New School from Nigeria and different African countries.

The conference also has breakout sessions, which focus on practical topics and trends such as A&R, label and artist management, brand partnerships and endorsements, music sales and distribution, and copyright law. LMC will also be running technical workshops aimed at professional sound/audio engineers, producers, artists and DJs.

According to the co-founder of the LMC, Jenny Tan, “While local music industry conferences do exist in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya or Nigeria, none of the events on the continent have a pan-African spirit, and our music industries are very disconnected.”