The Business Behind the Music: SAMRO and Music Business Lab Graduate 50 Entrepreneurs

By Viranova Music Desk02 Jun 2026Music

We love the myth of overnight musical success.

We love the story of the kid making beats in a bedroom who suddenly goes viral, buys a house for their mother, and tours the world. It makes for great television.

It is also dangerously incomplete.

What often follows a viral moment is a brutal collision with the business side of music. A hit song does not create long-term value if the metadata is wrong. Millions of streams mean less than they should if publishing splits are unclear. A massive chorus can travel around the world while the people who created it still struggle to understand the machinery behind their own work.

The South African music industry has too many stories of brilliant creators who struggled financially because they did not fully understand the business of their art.

That narrative is slowly being challenged.

On 29 May 2026, at Warner Music Group’s Johannesburg offices, 50 music entrepreneurs graduated from the third edition of the Music Business Lab Publishing Programme. Run in partnership with the Southern African Music Rights Organisation, the programme is not about teaching artists how to write better hooks.

It is about teaching them how to own them.

The graduates included artists, producers, songwriters, publishers and creative entrepreneurs from across South Africa. They completed a programme focused on the practical fundamentals of music publishing and commercial survival: intellectual property, royalty income, revenue generation, market access, enterprise development and the systems that determine whether creative work becomes long-term income.

That kind of education matters because talent alone is not enough.

Ninel Musson, founder of the Music Business Lab, has positioned the programme as part of a broader publishing-development movement. SAMRO’s involvement gives it added weight because the organisation sits at the centre of rights, royalties and creator value in South Africa’s music ecosystem.

The key phrase here is fair value.

That is the battleground.

For decades, the power dynamic in African music has often been uneven. Creators had the sound, but institutions, labels, distributors and rights structures often held the knowledge. When artists do not understand publishing, contracts or royalties, they walk into negotiations already disadvantaged.

This programme helps change that.

The graduation also featured a panel moderated by Siya “Slikour” Metane, with industry figures including Munya Chanetsa, Tumi Mogapi, Melanie G. Ramjee and Karabo Senna. That matters because it places working industry knowledge directly in front of emerging publishers and entrepreneurs.

The industry cannot keep gatekeeping the mechanics of success.

It has to distribute the blueprint.

Another important development was the announcement of The Songwriters Club, an alumni network for female songwriters co-founded by Music Business Lab graduate Pilani Bubu. In an industry where executive, publishing and ownership spaces have often been male-dominated, a structured network for women writers is not cosmetic. It is strategic.

We can keep celebrating viral hits, arena shows and global recognition.

But one important part of South African music’s future is sitting in rooms like this, learning how to read contracts, register works, protect rights and build businesses around creativity.

The future is not only on stage.

Sometimes, it is in the paperwork.

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