U NTIL FOUR years ago, Tobe Onwuka was a junior at a car dealership, trusted to reel in the customers but not to clinch the deals. Now he’s chomping on a crispy duck salad at the Groucho, his private members’ club, and chatting about Stormzy, the rapper from south London responsible for this change in fortune. (He still won’t order the scallops, for fear of being seen as posh.) Sitting in a tracksuit top, Mr Onwuka explains the success of Stormzy, the childhood friend whom he now manages. “We’ve cut out a bunch of the middlemen,” he says.

The global music industry has been transformed by the internet. In 2000 music sales made up a little under two-thirds of revenue. By 2017 they made up less than two-fifths, as earnings from live events jumped, according to MID i A , a consultancy. The industry has responded with “360 deals” that give labels a cut of artists’ non-musical earnings. Although merchandise and sponsorship make up a relatively small share of revenues, that slice has more than doubled in the same period. Cash from gigs and merchandise thus partly offsets dwindling revenue from music sales.

Now a savvier generation of musicians, whom the industry calls “artist-entrepreneurs”, are building their own brands through social media, and are no longer relying on labels for merchandising deals. “They want to develop themselves into the assets,” says an industry bigwig. Stormzy, a 25-year-old whose real name is Michael Omari, was among the first to spot this power shift. “I know it’s sick, I know it’s marketable,” he has said.

Everything he considers sick (great) is marketed as #Merky, the umbrella brand for his empire. There are #Merky records, #Merky books and even Stormzy-funded scholarships at Cambridge University. But until January he refused to sign with a label. Although he shunned the industry, his first album topped the charts in 2017. Next year he will headline the Glastonbury music festival. “Stormzy is his own media company,” says Sally-Anne Gross, a music-industry expert at Westminster University.

Rappers and punk bands have long snubbed labels. Jay-Z, an American rapper, began his own. But the breadth of Stormzy’s empire is unusual. His publishing imprint, a joint venture with Penguin Random House, will hold a competition for new writers from minority backgrounds. #Merky is a “hub of endless possibilities”, says Stormzy. There could be hospitals, schools—even, he has said, a #Merky shade of black. When Stormzy at last signed a record deal, it was on his terms: a joint venture with Atlantic Records, with Stormzy as its first (and so far only) signing.

Musicians have often cashed in on their fame. Elvis Presley licensed lipsticks, bracelets and a “Love Me Tender” necklace. But #Merky is different, says Roisin O’Connor, a music critic. “This is clearly his own idea.” Stormzy texts Mr Onwuka at 3am with his latest schemes. Traditional merchandising flops today, his team reckons. Social media have brought fans closer to their idols and enabled them to call out attempts to flog tat. “We’re in the most honest age of music,” says Mr Onwuka. At Stormzy’s old high school in South Norwood, his “south-side story” resonates. “He is his brand,” says Jaheen Reid, 17. “Because we like him we’re more likely to buy into his products.”

For now, his finances are, well, a little murky. His businesses do not have to report profit-and-loss figures so it is hard to gauge their success, though they are nowhere near the size of the industry’s titans. His most public financial disclosure was by rap. “A young black boy made a milli’ off grime,” he says in “Cold”.

The industry bigwig claims none of this worries him. The fact that Stormzy now works with a label proves that “you can’t go it completely alone,” he says. The most successful artists will need the industry to manage the logistics of global stardom. Yet by then they may have the power to strike better deals. Stormzy’s team appears to call the shots. It is rooted in the holy trinity they say black Londoners hold dear: faith, family and music. #Merky may fizzle out yet, or it could live up to the hype. Either way, it won’t be caused by the industry’s marketers. For, as Stormzy has put it, “man don’t work with clowns.”