Music

African music is pop music. The long-awaited introduction of the best African music performance category at the 2024 Grammys, when Burna Boy became the first African artist to perform during the awards ceremony, is proof of its undeniable cultural dominance. And U.S. superstars like Chris Brown, Travis Scott and Beyoncé are reaching out to African artists like Lojay, Tyla and Tems, respectively, for hit collaborations. 
However, Western recognition only scratches the surface of what’s coming together on the continent. Music consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by 114% in the last year, according to Spotify’s annual Wrapped data report. Burna Boy, Wizkid and Davido’s top cities on Spotify are all in their native Nigeria, solidifying Africa’s foundation to launch homegrown music to the rest of the world. And no other label in Africa has been as successful in doing so as Nigeria’s Mavin Global. 

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Founded in 2012 by legendary Nigerian producer and executive Don Jazzy, Mavin Global has been instrumental in making Afrobeats one of Nigeria’s greatest exports. With Tiwa Savage and Wande Coal as the label’s first artists, Mavin is still regarded as an incubator and launchpad for an entirely new generation of Afropop stars. Its current roster is larger than ever with 12 artists: There’s Johnny Drille with his alternative-folk sound, Ladipoe who leans into rap, and Lifesize Teddy, whose Afro-fusion blend speaks to Gen Z. 

And of course, there’s Rema and Ayra Starr, two artists signed as teens in 2019 who’ve become the label’s marquee stars and commanded the world’s attention. Rema’s 2022 single “Calm Down” from his debut album Rave & Roses is one of the most commercially successful Afrobeats songs of all time, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, with the help of a Selena Gomez-assisted remix, and became the first track by an African artist to hit one billion streams on Spotify. And Starr’s 2022 single “Rush” earned the Afropop singer her first Grammy nomination in the best African music performance category.

Both artists also released their seminal sophomore albums this year, Rema with his daring HEIS and Starr with her coming-of-age The Year I Turned 21. Rema’s gothic tribute to his hometown of Benin City was created in response to the backlash from his sold-out, headlining show at London’s O2 Arena last November. He rode a giant bat – a nod to Benin City’s most popular animal – and wore a replica of Queen Idia’s famous mask in reference to historical artifacts, known as the Benin Bronzes, that were looted by British troops in 1897 and are currently being held at the British Museum. Meanwhile, Starr’s sophomore album calls upon an international assembly of artists – from Nigerian street pop stars Seyi Vibez and Asake to Brazilian pop superstar Anitta to American R&B singer-songwriters Coco Jones and Giveon – for support as she examines her transition into womanhood and navigates love, loss and life.

But there’s been one person behind the development of both artists: Rima Tahini Ighodaro, senior vp of A&R and creatives at Mavin. Guiding artists through what she refers to as “world-building,” the Lebanese-Sierra Leonean executive leads the 10-person A&R team that works with the label’s roster to both realize and reimagine their creative vision for their music – setting up studio sessions and liaising with the label’s other departments to maximize the artists’ full potential.

“With Rema, I went on maternity leave and he came to my house to visit me after I had my baby and was like, ‘Here’s my album.’ I didn’t even know when he had recorded it!” she tells Billboard. 

Rema and Rima Tahini Ighodaro

Courtesy of Rima Tahini Ighodaro

While critics have described HEIS as having a dark energy compared to the lighter, Afropop sound of his earlier material like his breakthrough 2019 single “Dumebi,” Tahini Ighodaro argues “[he’s] more like experimenting with the old and what has always been true to Afrobeats to birth a new sound. For an artist like Rema, who knows exactly what he wants and desires to explore his potential fully, and continuously pushes the boundaries, he always needs a trusted soundboard.” 

His experimentation paid off, and HEIS earned Rema his first Grammy nomination for best global music album at the upcoming 2025 awards show. “Last year was one of his biggest years in his career and you know we missed that Grammy moment… but there’s a saying in my culture: ‘delay is not denial,’” says Tahini Ighodaro, in reference to “Calm Down” missing the eligibility period for the 2024 Grammys. “HEIS is a project that was personal to him, he led a lot of the creativity in the music and stood by it even as it got backlash. It was a culture shock in a lot of ways, but I’m happy that he was recognized for the whole [album] as opposed to just a popular single.” 

Rema’s boundary-pushing approach also rings true for Starr, who has evolved sonically as well as conceptually. Her Afropop, Afrobeats and Nigerian folk sensibilities in earlier projects have molded the sound of a well-rounded global pop star. “Making 21 was so different from [Starr’s debut album] 19 and Dangerous because she’s grown so much as a person [and] as an artist,” Tahini Ighodaro says. “She really knows how she wants to tell her story and wants to be at the forefront of everything, making certain decisions where she might have previously, due to age and inexperience, leant into A&R guidance, when it came to working with producers and other artists and crafting her sonic direction.” 

Ayra Starr and Rima Tahini Ighodaro

Rima Tahini Ighodaro

On HEIS and The Year I Turned 21, Tahini Ighodaro adopted an even more hands-on approach, “giving feedback on the music, helping the artists communicate their creative vision to the teams involved and ensuring that their vision was properly executed,” she says, while simultaneously taking care of other tasks like “clearances, feature management and commissioning the right creative teams to work on artwork, music videos, photoshoots.” In the prolonged chaos of putting together an album, Tahini Ighodaro also served as a grounding force for both artists. “Sometimes the artists forget what they initially committed to or they deviate or maybe get in their heads. I was always on standby to reel them back in,” Tahini Ighodaro explains. “Creatives need a first responder.”

Six years since she started working at Mavin, Tahini Ighodaro has found that the job involves more than just developing the musical direction of an artist’s career. It’s also about empowering an artist to create their own trajectory, and she doesn’t take that responsibility lightly. “This is essentially a people business – and if you don’t have empathy, a high tolerance for working with different types of people and emotionally investing into their vision, then it just won’t work. Whatever music is made is a byproduct of how they’ve been made to feel,” she says. 

Tahini Ighodaro uses this same empathy-led approach when developing artists who go through Mavin Academy, which develops newly signed artists for two years through vocal training, live performance practice, branding, creative direction and media training at Mavin’s headquarters in Lagos, before the label officially introduces them to the world upon their “graduation.” This process of grooming and preparation, dating back to Motown’s legendary artist development department in the mid-1960s, had been a mainstay of the pop music machine prior to the current era of overnight, viral success that often thrusts young artists into the spotlight. “The Academy is centered on the intentionality of building an artist [and] their craft. Artists come and go – we call it ‘blow’ in Nigeria, when they come up off one hit or a couple of bangers,” she explains. The Academy is more than a one-stop shop for making an African superstar; it serves as a reminder of Mavin’s legacy of building a foundation at home, which is a recurring theme in Tahini Ighodaro’s life and ascent in the African music scene. “It’s about shaping well rounded artists that have something to hold on to, even after their relationship with Mavin ends,” she says. 

A deep sense of pride for the continent is something she has worn on her sleeve since she was designing and selling traditional clothes at diasporic gatherings and events at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., where she studied business and economics. “I always knew I wanted to work in Africa,” she says. “I didn’t think America needed me, because Africa is where I would feel a sense of purpose.” After graduating in 2016, she landed her first job as a senior associate at Kupanda Capital, a venture capital firm focused on incubating, capitalizing and scaling pan-African companies. “I was so excited because it aligned with how I wanted to come back to the continent.” Tahini Ighodaro says.

When she joined Kupanda, the firm was looking into investing in media and entertainment companies in Africa at a pivotal time when the music was exploding into the U.S. mainstream – think Davido’s “Fall,” which gained traction on U.S. radio and reached No. 13 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, or Wizkid’s feature on Drake’s “One Dance,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and became the first song to reach one billion streams on Spotify. She moved to Lagos in 2017 to work on Kupanda Holdings’ multi-million-dollar investment in Mavin Global (Kupanda Holdings is a joint venture between Kupanda Capital and TPG Growth). 

As a result of that deal, Tahini Ighodaro built relationships with Mavin CEO Don Jazzy and COO and president Tega Oghenejobo and its artists. While she was initially brought on to work on the due diligence of the deal between Kupanda and Mavin, she later grew interested in working on the creative side of the label and having a more direct impact on the artists’ careers. When the director of A&R role became available later that year, Don Jazzy and Oghenejobo thought she would be the perfect fit, in large part due to her empathy and ability to deal with so many different characters. “Don Jazzy and Tega could see how excited I was working on this side of the business. I always thought that this role was exclusively about music, but they explained that it’s more about having a high tolerance for working with others, as well as a good eye,” she explains.

Tahini Ighodaro’s senior role at Mavin is a positive signifier of increasing representation of women in African music, which she says is much better than it was when she first started but argues there’s still more work to be done. While pointing to powerful women – like Bose Ogulu, Burna Boy’s momager, and Wizkid’s manager Jada Pollock – as some of the few visible female executives, she admits navigating a male-dominated field “felt lonely at the time, not having a counterpart in the same industry who you could look at as a mentor or to be able to carve your career path.” When she started working at Mavin, her colleague at Kupanda Capital, Jordan Slick, also joined the label as its director of operations (she later became Mavin’s advisory and board observer). Tahini Ighodaro says they were the first women to work there, and six years later, there are three other women in senior roles at the company. “Women are in probably more than half of the executive roles at Mavin – operations, finance, legal and business affairs,” she says.

Tahini Ighodaro is also optimistic about the increased opportunity for meaningful investment into Africa’s musical legacy. In February, Universal Music Group bought a majority stake in Mavin Global, aiming to “accelerate Mavin’s strategic advancement” by focusing on two initiatives: nurturing talent through Mavin Academy and developing the next generation of African music executives through its executive leadership program. In addition to the pan-African aspirations, Tahini Ighadoro has her eyes on world domination beyond the continent. 

“The attention from the major markets is so exciting – looking at places like India, where ‘Calm Down’ was one of the biggest tracks last year, is positive,” she reflects. “We want to continue to break barriers and build on that. But the true North Star is building on our local industry [and] channeling the global momentum into solid foundations that will pour into Africa’s creative economy.”