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.

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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.