The money finally reaches the music.

What we do

An independent artist creates a page at their own name. They share the link. A fan opens it, chooses an amount, pays by card, bank transfer or mobile wallet, and the money lands in the artist's own bank account — usually the next morning.

That is the whole product. There is no marketplace, no download, no subscription and no exclusive content. A tip is a voluntary gift from one person to another, and we are the road between them.

Why it exists

An independent African artist can have listeners in twenty countries and still have no straightforward way to be paid by any of them. Streaming pays in fractions of a naira and months late. The people who would gladly give an artist money directly are stopped by the plumbing: the wrong currency, a card that will not go through, a bank transfer nobody wants to explain over DM.

So the ask is usually never made, and the money that was there to be sent is simply never sent. Hipstarr exists to make that ask one link.

How we make money

The artist receives 100% of the tip. Our fee is added on top and paid by the fan: 10% where the fan pays in Naira, 20% in US dollars or pounds. The tip, the fee and the total are all shown before anyone is charged.

This is the one thing we will not compromise on, and it is enforced in the database rather than left to good intentions: a payment cannot be recorded unless the artist's share equals the full tip. If we ever start taking a cut of an artist's money, it will not be by accident.

The full arithmetic is in our terms of service.

What we are not

• Not a bank, and not the recipient of your money. Payment is taken by a licensed payment provider — Paystack or Flutterwave — which splits it at the moment of payment. The artist's share goes directly to the artist's own payout account. We never hold it.
• Not a record label. We take no rights in anyone's music, no ownership, no cut of anything but our own stated fee, and we sign nobody.
• Not a shop. A tip buys no goods, services, membership or equity, and carries no promise from the artist.

Who is on a page

Every artist page is reviewed by a person before it goes live. An artist signs up, provides the bank account the money will settle into, and waits for us to approve them — pages carrying the Verified by Hipstarr mark have been through that review. It is a small check, done by hand, and it is there because the fastest way to ruin this product would be to let someone collect money under an artist's name.

Who runs it, and where to find us

Hipstarr was founded by Ekene Michael Ahuche and is operated by Hipstarr Media & Technologies, a business registered with Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission.

For anything at all — a payment that went wrong, an artist page that shouldn't be up, a press question, or a partnership — email hipstarrmusic@gmail.com. It reaches a person, not a queue.

You can also find us on Instagram, X and TikTok.

The rest of it

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