Banky W has opened up on the current state of his record label, Empire Mates Entertainment (EME).
Banky W via his Instagram, said “We decided it was time to quietly close the Record Label Arm of our business”. He explained that himself and his team have restructured their business and have expanded their idea by changing focus.
Empire Mates Entertainment (EME) was started by @captdemuren & I, way back in 2001/2002 – in my dorm room at my University in NY. The reason we used the word “Empire” was because Tunde and I were crazy enough to dream that we could build a company that would eventually become an Empire.. one that would serve as the launching pad for not only my career goals in music, movies and other interests… but one that would also serve as a stepping stone for other talents to become more successful and achieve their goals as well.
We started the record label part of it right there in my room, which we relocated to Lagos around Vals day 2008 – and we thank God for guiding and crowning our efforts thus far; we’ve played our little part in helping discover/boost the careers of a number of talents in the Music business (some of your favourite Artists, Producers & Engineers..) and we are forever grateful for the opportunity to live out our dreams by giving others a platform to shine as well. In January of 2017, after 9 years of being in the Nigerian Music Industry, we decided it was time to quietly close the Record Label Arm of our business.
Essentially we have restructured our business.. and instead of operating just as a record label, we have expanded and changed our focus a bit… we are now a full fledged Media Agency that focuses on Creative Marketing, Advertising, PR, Brand Events/Activations AND a talent management firm. This switch in focus has been amazing and fulfilling.. behind the scenes, we have been able to impact the launching and marketing of a number of brands and companies the way we did artists.. but even in the talent management side, we are no longer restricted to working with just Music Artistes. We still work with Musicians, but we also work with OAP’s, Actors and are evaluating sports management as well.
The goal was always to find talents and brands we believe in, and partner with them to help them become more successful… now we have expanded to do that for more than just the Music business. We are excited about our client portfolio: the corporate brands we rep, as well as the talents. At the moment, our clients are: @djxclusive83, @ebuka, @toolzo, @adesuaetomi, and of course yours truly Mr W. (And a few corporate brands as well).
