Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde Explains Why Afrobeats Outpaced Nollywood Globally

Seasoned Nollywood star Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has observed that Nigerian music, particularly Afrobeats, achieved global recognition faster than the country’s film industry.

In a recent appearance on the Afropolitan podcast, she attributed this disparity mainly to financial factors.

Jalade-Ekeinde, who is also a singer and previously ran a record label, noted that producing music generally demands less funding compared to creating movies, which contributes to its quicker rise on the international stage.

“What is holding Nollywood back is mostly funding. With music, it is not really as expensive to create. Except if you want to shoot lavish music videos which are rare these days.

“Because easy viral ideas make more impact than packaged billion-dollar budget videos.

“So you notice that a lot of artists and now just having fun in their house or with friends and they record it and people like it because it is organic.

“But you can’t do that with film, unfortunately. The cheapest movie would probably still have like 30 cast and crew,” she explained.