“I came into the Nigerian music industry at a time when people did not appreciate songwriters and record producers…I’m happy that we stuck to our guns, and people started adopting a model of doing business properly” – Akinyemi Ayinoluwa.
By Emmanuel ‘Waziri’ Okoro
More often than not, when conversations about music take place, the spotlight directly falls on artistes, and on occasion, their producers. Rarely do we pause to acknowledge and celebrate the thankless work of those who keep the industry’s machinery humming smoothly behind the scenes. Music lawyers, for instance, play a crucial role in safeguarding contracts, licensing, copyrights, and intellectual property, enabling talents to create, release their work, and benefit from their labours.
Indeed, the global explosion of Afrobeats in recent years would not have been possible without the legal fortitude that underpins many of its biggest success stories. At the forefront of this vital work is Akinyemi Ayinoluwa. Recently named to Billboard’s 2025 Top Music Lawyers list, Ayinoluwa has become one of the leading legal voices shaping the African music economy, blending deep cultural insight with cutting‑edge dealmaking.
As managing partner of Lagos‑based Hightower Solicitors & Advocates, he has spent the past sixteen years representing a generation of Afrobeats’ biggest in-demand producers, including Magicsticks, Ragee, Blaq Jerzee, Kukbeatz, Masterkraft, and others. Akinyemi Ayinoluwa’s expertise spans contract negotiation, music publishing, IP strategy, and catalogue development, but his enduring passion lies in amplifying the legal and financial rights of songwriters and producers, the often‑overlooked architects of modern African music.
Notably, last year, Hightower facilitated a landmark publishing deal between EMPIRE and Ragee, the co‑producer of Chris Brown’s 2023 track, “Sensational” featuring Davido and Lojay. The hit single was later nominated for the ‘Best African Music Performance’ at the 2025 Grammys and won the ‘Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration (Contemporary)’ award at the 55th NAACP Image Awards.
In this virtual interview with Afrocritik, Ayinoluwa reflects on the importance of legal advocacy in the music business, what being recognised by Billboard means to him, his philosophy when taking on new clients, and much more.
For most of our readers who are meeting you for the first time, who is Akinyemi Ayinoluwa?
I am a lover of music, who once nurtured the idea of being a singer-songwriter, but I didn’t make it to the big stage, and then I had to still find my way to be actively involved in music. That is the story of my life for the last sixteen years of actively being a lawyer, and almost ten years of finding my way in the world of music. That’s close to three decades of being a lover of music, embodying music, and using music as a vehicle for expressing myself and impacting the world around me. That has led me to co-founding a law firm that is very entertainment-focused, and that has also given me an opportunity to be a part of so many people’s lives, careers, and journeys.
I’m thankful that Billboard reached out to me, and I finally got the international accolade, which is, in a way, a prophecy fulfilled. That’s because in the last three years, I have been calling myself ‘Africa’s finest’. This is also a signpost to other lawyers from Nigeria and other regions in Africa that it is possible to be home-trained and home-bred, and be acknowledged and celebrated by international platforms like Billboard.
You studied Law at the University of Lagos. Law is quite a broad discipline. How did you decide that you were going to focus on the legal aspects of music?
As a youngster, I fell in love with music from when I was nine till I started recording music at sixteen. There was always the wild temptation of dropping everything else to pursue music to be like Wyclef Jean, R. Kelly, and 2baba–my heroes at the time. But I had parents who were very influential on my decision-making. My dad was also a lawyer. My parents didn’t frown at me doing music as it was giving me purpose, but they still wanted me to study to become a lawyer.
I learnt to bring my love for these two things together. In my third year at the university, I discovered that the founder of Chocolate City Music, Audu Maikori, was also a lawyer. I thought to myself that if I don’t make it as a singer-songwriter, I could own a record label and sign my own MI Abaga, Jesse Jagz, Ice Prince, and Brymo.
I stopped being a musician immediately I got to Law School, so I could focus on graduating and qualifying as a lawyer, and when I did graduate, I tried being a musician, but those dreams weren’t materialising. For me, the next point of call was to start a management firm, just like Audu Maikori, who started by being a talent manager, then owning a record label, while still being a music lawyer.
I started as a talent manager for three years for an artiste, while building relationships and understanding the entertainment industry better. I turned these opportunities into being a music lawyer exclusively serving the industry. I’m happy I stood the course and stayed on the journey. Discovering Audu Maikori gave me the clarity to follow my journey.
You’re the only Nigerian named on this year’s Billboard Top Music Lawyers list. How significant is that representation for you, and what message do you think it sends to the African music industry?
I’m a big fan of African excellence and creativity. Africa is not devoid of potential for global excellence. Many Africans have gone on from their own little corner of the world to become world-beaters and have been celebrated in different disciplines across the world. You can see the excellence in Victor Osimhen or Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s work.
My being nominated as the only Nigerian also drives home that message. I believe that I am not special. What I have done can be replicated by many people coming behind me. We need more people to continue to become international ambassadors of Africa.
What has the response been like from your peers, clients, and the industry since the announcement?
I got a lot of goodwill messages from my colleagues since the announcement. Some of them celebrated with me, and some took me out to dinner. I’m just thankful for everything, especially my clients, as it is my work with them that has gotten me this far.
Your firm, Hightower Solicitors & Advocates, is widely regarded as Africa’s premier music law firm. What do you think has contributed to this reputation?
Our dedication to making sure that our clients’ interests are championed properly has bolstered our reputation. I tell everyone who works with me at the office that, “We must be the guys that they can trust”. We do our utmost best to remain professional, and we also want to see a process where people come to us with potential, and we elevate their craft and grind in a manner that they’re doing well and prospering financially.
A lot of the people who work with me are self-driven and motivated to go above and beyond whatever we promise to our clients.
You’ve represented some of Afrobeats’ most in-demand producers, from Magicsticks, Rexxie, Blaq Jerzee, Kukbeatz, Masterkraft, to Ragee. What’s that one landmark deal or negotiation you’re especially proud of?
There was one of my producers who collaborated with Beyoncé sometime in 2019. That was a very big moment, as he got well compensated. Coming to the realisation that I was negotiating at the other side of the table across Beyoncé and her team was the confirmation that I was doing something well.
Many lawyers approach music law strictly from a legal or corporate angle. As someone with a music background, how do you balance legal precision with artistic empathy when dealing with clients?
I think that my training as a lawyer tends to make me look at the issues dispassionately as much as possible. Although that is a tall order, because we are all human beings with biases, preferences, and emotions.
So, we try our best to appraise issues on a case-by-case basis and look for ways to proffer solutions that are well grounded in law and reason. We have been able to do a good job of understanding what the issues are and looking for resolutions within the specification of business practice and law. If one is able to do that, they will not be swallowed by biases and emotions.
Can you walk us through your process when taking on a new client? What are the key priorities you look out for?
The person has to be obviously talented, or at least above average. The person must be teachable, to learn more and get better at creativity and business. The person must be very collaborative. To operate at the highest level in this music business, you must be a team player. It is easier to get along with your managers, lawyers, and other collaborators if you fulfill these metrics.
It also helps if the person is already on their own journey and working hard, and they simply need us to come on board to assist.
As someone who has been in the music business for close to thirty years, what, in your opinion, are some of the biggest legal or structural gaps currently affecting African music and its creators?
We need to really teach and enshrine in the psyche of everybody the idea of shared prosperity. A lot of people just want to take the spoils of war and move on, and leave their partners in their past. For instance, a talent manager and an artiste start a relationship, and months or years into an era of a new beginning of making major inroads, the talent manager might just get sacked.
Most of the time, when the talent manager gets sacked, they end up with nothing, while the artiste takes everything that they both worked for into the future. The artiste will be able to continue to build on the strength of their name and the music they have made. The same thing applies to labels and artistes.
Co-ownerships and partnerships are not meant to be just one-sided. If you look at other developed music territories, you’d see that many managers from three decades ago are still in management and doing well. These markets operate under the concept of shared prosperity and make sure their businesses adopt that idea.
There is also the problem of having associations that endure for many years and continue to champion the interests of their members. I believe that the Nigerian music industry needs more organisations for talent managers, artistes, songwriters, record producers, record labels, and even music publishers, to champion their interests, just like it is being done in other developed music markets.
Also, the government of the day needs to acknowledge how important culture, music, and entertainment are. Yes, there are great initiatives that are being introduced by government appointees and parastatals, but we still need more investment in an industry that has the ability to employ hundreds of thousands of people at a go.
What are some public misconceptions about publishing, royalties, or copyright that you’d like to correct?
People think you’re greedy when you want to have difficult conversations, especially when it comes to catalogue and royalties. It is important that everybody understands that the music being made is a vehicle for wealth creation; the compensation that is generated from that music can take care of generations after the creators.
It is not greedy or selfish of you when you want to properly have conversations around the music you’re making.
Has your firm ever encountered creative challenges in the course of carrying out duties? How were you able to navigate them?
I came into the music industry at a time when people did not appreciate songwriters and record producers. A couple of my colleagues and I had to aggressively champion these guys. Many people at the top of the music industry, about fourteen years ago, did not want producers and songwriters to be taken care of. They didn’t like the idea of signing agreements and split sheets.
The major challenge then was that top players were being mischievous and feigning ignorance that they didn’t know what ‘building a catalogue’ means, and that everybody should be taken care of. At some point, we had to fight them to a standstill. My name was always coming up as being difficult because I was not willing to compromise.
I’m happy that we stuck to our guns, and people started adopting a model of doing business properly. People are now embracing contracts and split sheets. The majority of producers and songwriters, by embracing building their catalogue properly, are in a better place. Many of them now make hundreds of thousands of dollars because they listened to their lawyers and supported their lawyers when they were fighting for their interests.
An average producer on the streets of Lagos must have heard of split sheets and producers’ contracts. That is how much fighting we had to do to make this a common part of doing business in Nigerian music.
In the age of streaming and AI, music rights and IP have become even more complex. How do you ensure that copyrights are being protected?
The music industry is built on the legal concepts of licensing, permission, or authorisation. If anybody wants to use the work of creatives, they need to license it properly. Artificial Intelligence is a tool, and in a case where that tool is being utilised for someone’s work, the licensing must be developed, and the compensation from such licensing must be well defined.
Hightower Solicitors & Advocates is expanding into South Africa and Tanzania this year. What prompted this pan-African expansion, and what impact are you hoping to make?
The music business in Africa holds a lot of promise. We are rooted in Nigeria as a law firm, but we believe that as we can serve or be a part of their team across the territories of the continent, it helps us add more value to the journey of creatives.
We have a pan-African vision, but at the moment, we are looking at the most promising music market on the continent. We want to continue to build relationships and be present in all these territories.
You’re also launching a mentorship programme for young entertainment lawyers. Why is this important to you, and what can participants expect?
Mentorship offers clarity; sometimes, young people in a particular industry need a guide in order to make fewer mistakes. I’m always interested in being a part of other people’s journeys. Through the mentorship programme, one would be able to guide very brilliant, passionate, and ambitious young lawyers. The true test of power is in its distribution. I have believed that as you become, you should always help other people find themselves.
I’ll be sharing everything I know with those who qualify for the programme; we will make the announcement, accept applications, take them under our wings, and teach them enough to help them have clarity on their journey in entertainment law.
What’s that one philosophy that drives you as you move through life?
Nobody is coming to save you. You have to do the work, especially if you were not born into a trust fund. My favourite hashtag that I use is #CreateYourFuture. I am the captain of my fate, and God has endowed me with everything, and I must create my future.
For upcoming creatives and lawyers hoping to follow a similar path, what advice would you give?
Once you have embraced the idea, you need to embark on the journey. You have to seek information as much as you can, speak to people that are more knowledgeable than you, and ultimately be a solutions-driven person.
Everything takes time, and you must love the hustle enough to stay on that journey, so you won’t be distracted. You need to invest in education, in building relationships, and in the things that will move you forward.
Emmanuel ‘Waziri’ Okoro is a content writer and journo with an insatiable knack for music and pop culture, with bylines on Afrocritik, PM News Nigeria, Tribune, ThisDay Live, Vanguard, and The Guardian. When he’s not writing, you will find him arguing why Arsenal FC is the best football club in the multiverse. Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, and Threads: @BughiLorde.