Communiqué 83: Wetalksound wants to be Afrobeats’ Rocnation
WeTalkSound began as a WhatsApp community now it's building the infrastructure for Nigeria’s next generation of independent stars.
Key points
1. Community can be a powerful foundation for a scalable business:
WeTalkSound started as a WhatsApp group for music lovers, but the trust, loyalty, and network it built in those early days became the foundation for a full-fledged 360° music company. Entrepreneurs can build an engaged community to create a ready-made audience for their product.
2. Vertical integration increases value and influence: WeTalkSound’s evolution into a full-service music company providing PR, video production, events, distribution, and label services to independent artists helps diversify the company’s revenue streams. Creative entrepreneurs can learn from this by building services connecting multiple parts of their industry’s value chain.
3. Independence is a strategic advantage in emerging creative markets: WeTalkSound has built an open, artist-agnostic platform. This makes it attractive to independent musicians who want control over their careers but still need professional infrastructure. This reflects a broader shift where creators want ownership and control but still need professional services. Entrepreneurs should identify where creators in their industry struggle with independence and build service platforms to fill those gaps.
1. The WhatsApp group to music empire pipeline
When I join the We Talk Sports group chat, its name has been briefly changed to “Mission X” to celebrate the Super Falcons clinching their 10th African Women’s Cup of Nations title. For a moment, the air is thick with national pride. But within hours, the conversation returns to regular programming. With the football season yet to begin, the conversation revolves around the European clubs on summer tours, transfer market rumours, and tactical breakdowns of pre-season friendlies.
It feels less like a WhatsApp group and more like walking into a lively bar: matches are dissected in real-time, banter flies faster than goals in a Champions League match, and somehow, amidst the chaos, friendships are forming. This, in its original form, is what Dolapo Amusat conceived of when he started a group of interest-based “We Talk” communities.
We Talk Sports is one of the last two of those communities. The other, WeTalkSound, has grown beyond just being a community for music lovers.
In 2018, WeTalkSound (WTS) began an annual tradition of releasing the LOFN album series, a project focused on love and attraction. By 2021, the fourth edition reached number one on Apple Music’s Alternative chart in Nigeria, a milestone signalling WeTalkSound’s growing ascendancy in the country’s wider music industry.
WeTalkSound eventually put a pin in the LOFN tradition, moving to more ambitious projects. In 2024, it released Sounds of Nollywood, a documentary series spotlighting the often-overlooked sound designers and composers behind some of Nollywood's biggest films. That same year, a collaboration with Trace saw the company develop shows showcasing African music and entertainment culture.
WeTalkSound’s portfolio of collaborations now includes work with Empire, Aristokrat Records, Universal, and OneRPM; a client list that reads like a who’s who of the African and global music business. In the process, WeTalkSound has outgrown its origins as a community of music lovers, fully evolving into a full-service music company that can produce, market, and distribute music, create compelling cultural content, and execute brand partnerships. But it all began many years earlier with a young boy in Ibadan with a deep love for music.
2. Early beginnings in Ibadan
Dolapo Amusat’s penchant for music began in secondary school in Ibadan, when all his classmates had a music phase. But while they all grew out of it, his phase endured. His first real attempt at creating a music community came before university, with a Facebook group called Rap at Its Best. “It was basically a place to argue about rap all day,” he recalls. Members traded lines from new releases, analysed metaphors, and occasionally descended into heated debates.
By the time he got to the University of Ibadan, Amusat had developed a reputation among friends as the music guy. But while he recorded a few tracks and even released music, much of his energy on campus went into other creative pursuits.
He became more active in the university’s literary scene than in its music circles, joining the campus press outfit Indie Press. He also started The Stellar Ensemble, a WordPress blog where he and his friends shared poetry, essays, and cultural commentary.
In 2015, Amusat co-created UI Writes a digital poetry anthology from University of Ibadan students. Published as a free PDF, the collection was downloaded thousands of times and featured in The Nigerian Tribune and The Guardian. “That was the first thing that made me think, okay, we can start something from scratch, with no money, and it can be real,” Amusat told Communiqué.
Shortly after UI Writes, during his final year, Amusat conceived WeTalkSound. The premise was simple: he had friends who loved music, but they didn’t know each other. Why not create a space where they could connect, share discoveries, and collaborate? The idea drew inspiration from his years on online forums, especially the Nigerian discussion site Nairaland, and from international music communities like Rap Genius (now Genius). “I was very heavy into forums,” he says. “I loved that you could have people from everywhere come together just to talk about music.” Alongside Wetalksound, he also created other communities, including WeTalkSports, WeTalkPolitics, and WeTalkMovies.
After university, Amusat went corporate, joining KPMG, Bolt, and eventually Google. But while he was climbing the corporate ladder, WeTalkSound was building its own momentum. What began with Amusat’s University of Ibadan circle quickly spilt into other campuses. UNIBEN, UNILAG, and OAU students joined in, drawn by the group’s energy and shared obsession with music. Soon, the group hit the WhatsApp member limit and had to migrate to Telegram.
By 2018, the community was ready to do more than talk about music. It began to make it. The LOFN series was born, sourcing tracks from artists within the group and curating them into a Valentine’s season release. The albums became a showcase for emerging voices, spotlighting artists like Vaderthewildcard, Soulblacksheep, and Bio. As these artists grew bigger, they carried WeTalkSound with them.
When any member of the WeTalkSound community dropped a music project, the community, which now has over 1000 members, moved like an army, reposting links and hyping releases across social media. The music industry began to pay attention, but there was still little structure around it. “We knew how to make noise online. It was more noise than any methodical strategy.” In 2020, Amusat began to create a structure around the community using what he had learned from Google and Bolt.
3. The WeTalkSound blueprint
Building a business began with Amusat deciding that being a part of conversations in the music industry wasn't enough; the community needed a media platform to shape conversations. “Media exists for different reasons, and one of them is to push agendas.” If WeTalkSound was going to be influential in Nigeria’s music ecosystem, it had to be able to create its own narratives. So, they built out an in-house publication and content team to create stories, interviews, and cultural commentary on the Nigerian music industry.
From there, the focus shifted to providing PR and marketing services for artists. WTS was already a trusted name among up-and-coming musicians, so handling publicity, campaign strategy, and audience engagement felt like a natural extension. But music marketing is heavily dependent on visuals. So they built out a video production arm, starting with artist-focused documentaries.
Once they had media, marketing, and visuals on lock, Amusat looked to the next frontier: events. WeTalkSound had always had small community events, but they decided to do it on a larger scale. Insert Nights was launched, a monthly live event series that became a gathering point for artists, fans, and industry insiders. These nights served as both showcases and testing grounds for talent and networking hubs for the music industry.
The final pieces of the puzzle came with music distribution and label services. WTS had spent years helping several artists grow, but Amusat knew that actual influence in the music industry came from owning IP — songs, masters, and content that could generate revenue directly. By offering distribution, WeTalkSound could ensure artists’ music reached streaming platforms worldwide. They could help guide artists’ in their creative process, and navigate the murky waters of contracts and rights management by providing label support.
Today, WeTalkSound operates as a 360-degree music company capable of in-house navigating the complex process of taking an artist from idea to global stage.
In building out WeTalkSound, Amusat often points to Roc Nation as a blueprint. Roc Nation has its hand in nearly every part of the global music value chain, from developing artists to organising concerts, collecting royalties, and selling merchandise. In 2019, after years of declining viewership, the NFL tapped Roc Nation to curate the Super Bowl halftime show, a partnership that yielded record-breaking performances from artists like Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, and Dr. Dre.
WeTalkSound has begun to explore similar partnerships in its own way, for instance, collaborating with the French Embassy to produce cultural programming for World Music Day. Another reference point is AWAL (Artists Without a Label), which began as a community-driven label services platform for independent artists. By 2022, AWAL’s influence and infrastructure were so significant that Sony Group acquired it for $430 million.
Like Roc Nation and AWAL, WeTalkSound is betting on breadth, versatility, and independence. But it also has a unique advantage in the Nigerian market. The typical record label structure here often revolves around a superstar artist who signs younger acts, using their own fame as the launchpad. WeTalkSound is not tied to any one artist or a legacy institutional label. Instead, it operates as an open platform, equally accessible to any artist looking to retain independence while still accessing world-class services.
As more Nigerian musicians choose to go independent, WeTalkSound is positioning itself as the infrastructure that makes that choice viable. A full service music company capable of offering everything from creative direction and marketing to legal, distribution, and event production.