The money finally reaches the music.

What we do

An independent artist creates a page at their own name and shares the link. A fan opens it, chooses an amount, and pays by card, bank transfer or mobile wallet. The artist receives 100% of what the fan sends. Our fee sits on top and is paid by the fan, never taken out of the artist's share.

Fans can pay in naira, dollars or pounds, so a listener in London or Houston can pay a Lagos artist directly. The money settles into the artist's own bank account, usually the next morning.

We have kept it to that on purpose. 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. Whatever we build next starts here, with the money arriving whole.

Why it exists

An independent African artist can have listeners in twenty countries and no straightforward way to be paid by any of them. Streaming pays in fractions of a naira and months late. People who would gladly pay an artist 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 money that was there to be sent is never sent.

What the plumbing blocked was never only the payment. A stream returns an artist a number. A payment returns a name. A fan who paid early has a claim on that history that a play count does not give them, and an artist who can see who showed up has people worth going back to.

One tip is a moment. Support that comes back is a relationship, and that is the direction this goes.

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, whether 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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