Ava Anthony arrived in Thailand expecting little more than a holiday. What she found instead unsettled the way she thought about music.
One evening, inside a jazz bar, she watched performers whose ease on stage felt almost rehearsed into instinct. Beyond the live performances, she discovered an industry built on years of deliberate preparation, in which aspiring artists could spend seven to nine years training before a record label would consider them ready to debut.
For Anthony, a Nigerian singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name ‘Denle,’ the experience raised an uncomfortable question.
If Afrobeats has become one of the world’s fastest-growing music genres with far less formal preparation, what could it become if artists developed within similarly structured systems?
“There’s a structure that Asia has been able to incorporate,” Anthony told TechCabal. “I’m also taking a look at the numbers and the statistics comparing that to Afrobeats, and the stat is alarming—how they’re doing like 30 to 100 billion streams in a year, and Afrobeats is just doing like 30 [billion streams].”
It was an unlikely realisation for someone who had travelled to Thailand on a modest budget, intending to teach English while experiencing life in a different country. Yet that journey would leave her thinking as much about Nigeria’s creative economy as her own career.
The irony is that Anthony’s relationship with music began in a far less structured setting.
Growing up, mornings in her family home often began with the voices of Nigerian gospel singer Panam Percy Paul or American country musician Jim Reeves drifting through the house.
Both of her parents sang in the church choir—her mother still does—and music was woven so naturally into family life that she scarcely noticed its influence.
She certainly didn’t imagine it would become the opening chapter of a life that would take her from studying electrical and electronics engineering to working as a digital strategist for major Nigerian brands, teaching English in Thailand and pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter. Nor did she expect that travelling halfway across the world would fundamentally reshape how she thought about the future of African music.
From church choirs to campus busking sessions
Long before Chiang Mai, there was a 13-year-old girl discovering that her voice could move people.
Anthony says she first realised she might actually be able to sing after performing a solo in her church’s children’s choir.
Afterwards, a woman approached her mother and remarked in Yoruba, “What a voice your daughter has.”
Anthony remembers that moment as a turning point. Encouraged by her mother, what began as a fascination with music gradually evolved into writing original songs while she was still in secondary school.
She sang Disney songs alone in her room, joined the school choir and continued writing. Her mother supported her ambitions but insisted that education came first.
“Once you get that certificate, then you can go into music,” they told her, according to Anthony.
At Landmark University in Kwara State in southwestern Nigeria, she studied Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering; she met a guitarist who shared her enthusiasm for performing.
Together, they began holding informal Saturday evening busking sessions behind one of the campus cafeterias.
What began as two students playing music gradually attracted regular audiences of between 15 and 20 people.
“It became an every-Saturday thing,” she said. “That was when I started thinking, ‘okay, I can actually do this in real life.’”
After graduating in 2015, the guitarist—Damilola Aalabi ‘Isama’—became her manager, and she began attending recording camps that helped launch her music career.
One of the clearest confirmations that she was on the right path came during a recording session for an unreleased song titled Magnificent, performed under her stage name, Denle.
She sent the song to her sister in the United Kingdom, who called back in tears.
Written for Black girls navigating questions of beauty, race and self-worth, the song resonated deeply with her sister’s experience of living as a Black minority in Britain.
That conversation reinforced Anthony’s sense of purpose.
“I feel like I was given this gift and this talent to be able not just for myself but for people.”
After university, Anthony was posted for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Nigeria’s compulsory one-year national service programme, to Brotherhood Secondary School in Ibesikpo Asutan, Akwa Ibom State, in southern Nigeria.
The public school bore little resemblance to the private schools she had attended.
She says she arrived on her first day convinced the students would mock her accent. Despite having no formal training as an English teacher, she found herself teaching the subject anyway.
Rather than retreat, she leaned into the challenge.
One lesson at a time, she built a rapport with her students. She asked what they hoped to become, shared stories of people who had overcome difficult circumstances and, every so often, ended lessons by singing.
“Before I leave the class, [the kids] would say, ‘Teacher, teacher, sing one more song,’” she said. “It felt like a beautiful merger: teaching and music.”
Teaching may have become her profession, but music never stopped being her ambition.
The strategist behind the songs
After completing national service, Anthony built a career in digital strategy.
Between 2016 and 2020, she said she worked in advertising and branding, developing campaigns for clients including Nigerian tier-one lenders Access Bank and Zenith Bank. She later served as a community manager on a Lagos State gubernatorial campaign that challenged incoming governor Jimi Agbaje in 2019, according to Anthony.
Those years gave her something many emerging musicians never acquire: a practical understanding of digital communities, audience development and brand positioning.
“I realised that it’s not just for corporate sectors,” she said. “You can actually put that into music and entertainment, into a person.”
By 2020, Anthony was ready for another chapter.
She had secured admission to the University of Ilorin Business School to pursue a master’s degree, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed those plans before the programme could begin.
“In 2020, I secured admission into the University of Ilorin Business School in Nigeria. My plans to continue my studies were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Anthony said.
Instead, she pivoted into music management, working with artists while continuing to take on freelance branding and digital strategy projects. For the first time, the two sides of her career—advertising and music—began to converge.
“From 2020 to 2025, my career was shaped by a single theme: using technology to bridge creativity, business, and education across different industries and countries.
Moving to Thailand
By 2024, Anthony had accumulated experience as a teacher, digital strategist, and music manager. It was, however, her brief teaching experience during national service that unexpectedly shaped her next move.
Inspired by her time in the classroom, she developed an interest in English-language instruction and educational technology. Anthony decided to travel to Thailand in 2025, first on a tourist visa, combining what she expected would be a short holiday with a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification.
“[The certification] required a structured TEFL training programme that combined coursework with practical teaching assessments,” Anthony said. “Rather than a single written exam, the certification required successfully completing teaching practicum sessions and demonstrating classroom competence over the course of about a month.”
Applying for a Thailand tourist visa, which has a 60-day validity period, requires applicants to hold about 20,000 THB ($600) per person, or 40,000 THB ($1,200) for a family.
“I had already been saving towards an international relocation because I had previously been preparing for [an] opportunity,” she said. “When my plans changed, I redirected those savings toward relocating to Thailand while ensuring I met the country’s official financial requirements.”
Thailand generally requires visitors to demonstrate they have sufficient funds to support themselves during their stay, a requirement Anthony had already prepared for while planning her move abroad.
She moved to Thailand in March 2025, just weeks before the country’s annual Songkran Water Festival.
“I remember just getting into Thailand, and it just felt so right,” she said. “It felt like I was supposed to be here.”
The TEFL programme introduced her to teachers from different parts of the world and exposed her to new approaches to technology in education across Asia.
What began as a one-month certification course soon became something more. Anthony stayed on, spending two months teaching English in Chiang Mai while immersing herself in Thailand’s education system, culture and creative industries.
Then came the conversation that would reshape how she thought about African music.
One evening, while out with a friend who had persuaded her to experience Chiang Mai’s nightlife, Anthony struck up a conversation with the owner of a local record label. He described the years of structured training that many Thai artists undergo before making their professional debut—an approach that contrasted sharply with how many artists emerge in Africa.
The conversation has stayed with her.
Today, Anthony says she hopes to help build a similar training-oriented ecosystem for African artists—one that combines vocal development, performance coaching, branding and strategic positioning before musicians are introduced to international audiences.
“Afrobeats goes beyond a genre,” Anthony said. “It’s our heritage. It’s our culture. It’s who we are.”
Inside Thailand’s digital nomad visa
Anthony returned to Nigeria after the Songkran festival with her mind already made up. But she wasn’t done with Thailand.
“I got back home, and I told my parents, I think I’m actually going to apply for the digital nomad visa because there’s so much I [still need to] learn in Thailand,” she said. “I was very anxious, obviously applying as a Nigerian with the Nigerian passport. But it was quite easy.”
She had travelled to Thailand as a visitor. She wanted to return with the freedom to build a life there: as an educator, a creative, and a remote worker.
In June 2025, after several weeks of applications, Anthony relocated to Thailand on a Destination Thailand Visa (DTV), the country’s long-stay visa designed for remote workers, freelancers, creatives and participants in approved cultural or soft-power activities, including teaching.
Introduced in July 2024, the visa allows eligible foreigners to live in Thailand while working remotely, although holders cannot legally work for Thai-registered companies without additional authorisation.
Anthony said the application required proof of remote income or employment, reference or employment letters, evidence of sufficient financial means, about 500,000 THB—between $14,000 and $20,000, according to her—and an online application followed by an interview at the Royal Thai Embassy in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria.
She estimates the entire process cost between $450 and $500.
“The DTV is created for creatives and remote workers to thrive,” she said, pointing to Thailand’s abundance of cafés, creative spaces and reliable internet infrastructure, with Wi-Fi often included in residential rent.
Her application was processed electronically and approved within two to four weeks after a single interview.
With a 5-year validity period, the digital nomad visa allows her to stay in Thailand for up to 180 days at a time before leaving and re-entering the country, with the option to extend her stay by another 180 days.
“People call it a visa run,” she said. “But I don’t even see it as a visa run. You should explore other countries and come back in.”
She sees Thailand’s programme as part of a broader regional effort to attract global talent, pointing to similar digital nomad initiatives introduced by countries such as South Korea and Malaysia.
Building from Chiang Mai
More than a year after relocating, Anthony has lived in only two Thai cities: Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
Bangkok, she says, felt too familiar.
“I can’t leave Lagos [and] come to another version of Lagos,” she joked.
Chiang Mai offered something entirely different: a slower pace of life, quieter streets and a sense of calm that she says reshaped the way she thinks, works and creates.
She believes that mindset also influences how many Thai people relate to foreigners.
“They [Thai locals] don’t see colour here; they just see you as a person,” she said. “Buddha says don’t see people, don’t see colour, don’t see skin, don’t see gender, just see the human. That’s what they live by here.”
Whether or not that perception reflects the experience of every foreigner, Anthony says it has shaped her own experience of living in Thailand.
More profoundly, it has transformed her creative life.
“I learned how to breathe here,” she said. “I learned how to be calm here. I learned how to think here.”
She argues that the relentless pace of Lagos conditions many Nigerians to accept a level of stress they no longer recognise because it has become routine.
Thailand, she says, forced her to slow down—to unclench her shoulders, think more deliberately, and approach both work and music with greater intention.
The change has shown up most clearly in her songwriting.
“I remember telling my friend—the kind of songs I’ve written since I got here [Thailand],” she said. “I don’t think I could have written that when I was back home [Nigeria].”
Today, Chiang Mai serves as both her home and her studio. She works remotely as a brand consultant while continuing to build her music career, drawing inspiration from a country that has changed not only how she lives but also how she imagines the future of African artists.
“I’ve learned to structure my time so that neither career is neglected.” Anthony said, “For me, they’re not competing paths; one provides stability while the other allows me to express creativity and tell stories through music.”
She still hopes to explore Rayong, Koh Samui, Pai, and other parts of Thailand. But for now, Chiang Mai is where she has found the space to keep asking the question that first brought her back: what could African music become if talent had more time—and more room—to grow?
“My long-term goal,” Anthony revealed, “Is to contribute to building stronger ecosystems back home, where technology empowers education, where creative industries have better infrastructure, and compete globally through innovation.”
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