Nigeria’s music industry is booming, but the country still lacks the tools to show just how much value it creates.As artificial intelligence transforms global industries, young Nigerian innovators are showing that AI can help unlock the creative sector’s economic potential—starting with music.
Afrobeats has become a global cultural force, yet its contribution to Nigeria’s economy remains largely invisible in official statistics. Streaming revenues, digital exports, creator earnings, and thousands of jobs across the music value chain seldom appear in national data. This gap limits policymakers’ ability to design strategies that support the industry’s growth.
A recent report by the National Council for Arts and Culture, in collaboration with RegalStone Capital, estimates that Nigeria’s music industry generated ₦901 billion ($600 million) in 2024 and could surpass ₦1.5 trillion ($1 billion) by 2033. Young innovators participating in the country’s first AI-driven digital music hackathon demonstrated that new technology can help capture that value more accurately.
Building AI tools to measure the creative economy
At a national hackathon hosted by the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), in partnership with Blue Sapphire Hub and several government agencies, technologists, developers, creators, and data scientists explored how AI can generate real-time economic indicators for Nigeria’s digital music sector.
The hackathon forms part of ACET’s broader work on AI in economic policymaking, with a focus on under-measured, fast-growing industries. From 132 applications across 33 states, twelve teams were selected for a five-day hybrid sprint. They were tasked with using AI and alternative data—APIs, web scraping, telecommunications data, and social media insights—to prototype tools that bring the music industry’s economic contribution into sharper view.
Maryam Lawan Gwadabe, Founder of Blue Sapphire Hub, emphasized AI’s transformative potential. “By uniting artists, innovators, and technologists, we are showing how AI can elevate the creative sector, spark new business models, and strengthen Nigeria’s position in the emerging creative-tech economy,” she said.
Winners driving innovation
Team TuneIQ won the competition with a unified analytics platform that consolidates scattered streaming data from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Boomplay, and others into a single measurement tool.
“Our solution uncovers the true economic value of Nigerian music,” the team explained. “This platform isn’t just about numbers—it’s about visibility for the industry.”
The runners-up also impressed. Team Triumph created a consolidated streaming dashboard that transforms fragmented datasets into an actionable overview. Team MeerTech, which placed third, developed the Nigeria Music Analytics System (NMAS), a platform that converts unstructured music information into usable economic insights.
Reflecting on the experience, Team MeerTech noted, “Turning messy, unstructured data into a coherent, economic story was challenging but transformative. It showed us that data is becoming the new currency of the creative economy.”
What happens next?
The goal goes beyond prototyping. ACET and its partners will launch a “sandbox phase” in which winning teams work with host ministries, departments, and agencies to adapt their tools for government use. The focus is to help Nigeria strengthen the data infrastructure needed for evidence-driven policy in the music industry.
Rob Floyd, ACET’s Director of Digital Policy and Innovation, outlined the next steps: “We will work with the winning teams and relevant government agencies to test and refine the AI tools, explore their applications within government systems, and deepen their use in economic policymaking in Nigeria.”
A first-of-its-kind effort with wider potential
This hackathon is the first initiative of its kind to directly address Nigeria’s digital-music data gap. If refined and integrated into government systems, these AI tools could unlock tremendous opportunities—offering a clearer picture of the creative sector’s economic contribution and helping Nigeria, and potentially other African countries, harness the full value of a fast-growing creative economy.
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