Chief Executive Officer of Mavin Records, Don Jazzy, has revealed that the cost of promoting an artiste or a song varies widely, depending on the scale of the project and its global ambitions.
Speaking in a recent interview with Bounce FM, the award-winning music producer said promotional campaigns for a single track can range from about $100,000 to well over $1 million, while international breakthroughs often require far higher investment.
Don Jazzy cited Rema’s global hit Calm Down as a prime example, noting that the song’s early performance signalled its potential and justified increased spending.
“It varies and it keeps changing,” he said. “Sometimes it can be $100,000 or more. It depends on whether it’s a single, an EP or an album. For two singles, promotion in Nigeria alone can cost about $300,000.”
He explained that labels typically test a song’s traction before committing major resources internationally.
“You have to get some level of traction before you decide to push it globally,” he said. “For a song like Calm Down, we probably spent close to $4 million to $5 million (approx. ₦7.2 billion) to get it to where it is. Once it conquers one phase, you move to the next. Lifestyle is costly; you just don’t always see it.”
According to him, while some songs and artistes have broken through with as little as ₦10 million in promotion, global success demands far greater investment.
Calm Down, originally released in February 2022 as part of Rema’s debut album Rave & Roses, gained further momentum after a remix featuring US pop star Selena Gomez was released in August 2022.
The song went platinum in the United Kingdom in March 2023, became India’s second longest-charting number one African song, and was named the longest-charting African song on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 2024. It also set a record as Billboard’s longest-charting US Afrobeats song, spending 52 weeks on the chart.
In September 2024, the track surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, and as of December, its remix stands as the most-viewed Nigerian music video on YouTube with 1.2 billion views.
Rema, born Divine Ikubor, signed with Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records, in 2019.