Afrobeats Wire is open for tips. From today there is a permanent front door for anyone with something to tell us: afrobeatswire.com/pitch.
This publication covers one beat, narrowly and on purpose. Not who released what, but who owns it. Catalogue sales, distribution and publishing agreements, investment rounds, label restructures, royalty statements that do not reconcile, payouts that never arrived. The stories on this beat are almost never announced. They sit in a term sheet, a filing, a spreadsheet, or the memory of someone who was in the room and has since left. Which means the reporting only works if those people can find us.
What we are looking for
Deals and ownership. Who bought what, on what terms, and who still holds the masters afterwards. Term sheets, filings and signed agreements are the most useful thing anyone can send us.
Money that does not add up. A royalty statement that does not reconcile against the streams. A split that changed without anyone being told. An advance that was recouped twice. These are the stories artists talk about privately and almost nobody prints.
Numbers. Streaming, touring, retail or payout data we can verify and publish with the methodology shown. Our charts and datasets exist because the public numbers on African music are thin and often wrong.
Companies. The African music companies directory is built from public sources, so it is incomplete by construction. If you run one of these businesses and your entry is wrong or missing, tell us.
Story pitches. If you are a journalist working a beat we do not cover, tell us what it is and what you would file.
What we will not run
Release announcements. EPKs. Playlist and radio placement requests. Anything you would like written about you in exchange for money, which is advertising and is labelled as such on the media kit.
The terms, plainly
We read everything that comes in. We reply within five working days only if we are taking it forward, because a promise to answer every message is one no small desk keeps.
We do not pay for tips. We do commission freelance work, and we say so upfront when we do.
We do not show copy to sources before publication. We do check facts back, and where a company has given us figures we attribute them to the company rather than stating them as our own.
Everything is on the record unless you tell us otherwise before you tell us the thing.
If what you have is sensitive
A web form is not secure communication and we are not going to pretend it is. It is fine for most things. It is not fine if sending it could cost you your job.
In that case do not use the form, and do not use a work device or a work network. Write to pitch@afrobeatswire.com from a personal account, tell us nothing sensitive in that first message, and ask for another channel before you send anything real.
The rest is on the pitch page.
