fbpx
Skip links

Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido – Who Earns More?

Wherever bold tweets go, there’s a fat chance you would find Burna Boy there, sitting pretty. If there’s something we can all agree on, it’s that Burna walks the talk! I mean, this is a man that bounced back from losing out on the 2020 Grammy Awards for the Best Global Music Album category, to winning it the very next year. At some point, we just may begin to see that Burna’s statements are not ego on freeway, but sheer belief in self.

Burna Boy, whose real name is Damini Ogulu, does not just strike out and grab accolades, he strikes at personalities as well. Lately, Shatta Wale felt his fangs on his neck. AKA had felt it much earlier back in 2019, and would probably pray never to encounter Burna again. Burna Boy also went hard at South Africans after the despicable xenophobic attacks on Nigerians. That’s Burna, he strikes!

This is not the first time Burna Boy has published sensational tweets. Among many of such tweets, he’s proclaimed himself to be ‘…THE BEST since Fela Kuti“.

Another one of Burna Boy’s tweets has him claiming to be earning higher than a good number of artists in the industry. This tweet serves as a prompt for this investigative piece.

Getting more money from music and shows than all your faves combined. FACTs.”

This piece will analyse the tweet above with a view to obtaining the factual basis from which it was made. While there’s no mention of Davido and Wizkid, we can only assume that the only artistes to come close to his discography and success are Davido and Wizkid.

Davido at the o2Wizkid at the o2

Burna Boy at the Madison Square Garden

Is Burna Boy making more money than other artists(read Davido & Wizkid) in Africa?

First, a brief inroads into how artists make money.

There are different ways artists make money.

  1. Music sales / Streaming royalty
  2. Shows / Paid performances
  3. Image Rights
  4. Endorsement
  5. Merchandise sales

For our fact-checking analysis, we will stick to numbers from Streaming platforms, and hope it helps furnish us with enough insight. We will draw information from Chartmetric in order to arrive at a conclusion.

Platforms like Chartmetric present visual data from various streaming platforms. There are other platforms as well that are very helpful in drawing meaningful information regarding streaming and revenues accruing from them. With Royalti.io, artistes and labels can view the revenues accrued from all streaming and download platforms according to an agreed sharing formula between the record label and the artiste. An artist doesn’t have to be confused about how much they’re making from digital service providers (DSPs), Live shows and more. The Royalti platform makes data easily presentable on his dashboard with one click. Music distributors can use the Royalti.io platform as well with all their artists onboard and enjoy the ease of quick feedback.

Music Royalties and Earnings Fact Checking with Facts

So, what can we glean from checking out the metrics from Chartmetric? We will take this as far back as the last 30 days.

A visual data presentation of Stream earnings from Burna Boy, Wizkid and Davido

Conclusively, from streaming alone, Burna Boy isn’t “Getting more money from music and shows than all your faves combined”. That fact isn’t a fact but the argument will keep raging on regarding who is making the most money from their music business since some other revenue channels for these artists aren’t public information. We can only speculate.

Written by Isaac Newton Akah (18-06-2022)

Leave a comment