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A VOICE FOR THE ARTS
USANII MAGAZINE ISSUE No. 5 NOVEMBERR
TED
JOSIAH
usanii
What is in store...... Musings spotlight
Main feature
Guest columnist Classical moment
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The music industry is a tough market to be successful with a new musician popping up every hour globally. Granted making money is not easy in the music industry, what would surprise you is that even n the musicians who look successful are probably in a worse of place than you are. Our Guest columnist breaks down how the music industry works with relation to record labels. You will get to see why it takes more than just releasing a song or buying a song to support a musician anywhere in the world.
Excitement,that is probably not a word many people can relate with during these trying times. Humanity finds itself at a place of great difficulty and struggle. 48.1 million confirmed cases, 1.9 million deaths at the time of publishing. Our hearts go out to the families of the 1.9 million men, women and children who have departed from this world due to Covid 19, we grieve with their families as they pick up pieces of their lives and try to regain a sense of normalcy without the loving embrace, words or even touch of their loved ones. We also celebrate and with those 31.9 million individuals who have recovered and salute their resolve and fight to keep strong and see yet another day. Familial bonds have been tested to their limits in 2020, some have broken, but we would like to believe that most have survived and become stronger. Ted Josiah, a pioneer of Kenyan music talk to us about the role his family has played in shaping the man he has become and what he is doing to make sure his descendants and those that follow after him leave a positive impact on the planet. He shares and reveals interesting information and experiences with regards to where Kenyan music has come from and the tumultuous journey that he has had to undergo to be where he is currently.
M Rumbi is however not letting this challenges hinder him as he looks to conquer the world with his sounds and vibes. We talk to him in our Spotlight. feature and get a deeper understanding of who he is. We are excited to announce the premier of our online YouTube show USANII CONVERSAIONS where we talk to different artists on matters family, art and everything in between. Our first artist is non other than Ted Josiah, so head on to our Youtube Page Usanii Digital and get his story from his own mouth. We have so much more lined up for you on Usanii Digital in the coming months, so many artists and performances. So if you are out there and you are an artist who would like to be known or featured, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Let us be your voice and we shall grow together. MuCh LoVe UsAnIi TeAm
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MUSINGS
THE PERFECTLY CLAD GENTLEMAN Jacqueline NJOROGE www.jacquiescorner.com/leaving-a-worthy-legacy
When he walks into the room, You think he’s just another stranger clad in a perfect suit. When he takes his seat, It’s as if he has calculated a poise just to make you notice him. It works.
You’re so enthused. You want to move closer and observe each contour
You’re suddenly conscious of how you look. Then you remember how you’d sat to know if it needs alteration. If it does, You make subtle changes so that he doesn’t notice.
Your eyes move up until they stop on their own as if in his hands. Those of a puppeteer. You’re snared by those glimmering eyes Perfectly sculpted as if they were meant to pierce your heart. Then for a second you regain your bearings And you look away.
When you’re perfectly placed, you glance in his direction. “Thank God he’s looking elsewhere.” You get enslaved in his aura before he actually looks at you. You get so enticed that you forget to look away. Then he turns in your direction. You’re so startled you forget to react. After a second you blush. Seconds later you break out into a sheepish smile. You can almost trace a smile starting at the corners of his mouth. But you’re too nervous to wait it out. You turn away but then you remember something you saw. You look again. You can’t help but be mesmerized by those perfectly chiselled cheeks. Those defined cheek bones are simply exquisite.
This time he watches you. The urge to turn away nudges at you. But this time you wait it out.
The next time you look up His eyes are on you. You fight the urge to blush. Your eyes seem to have missed the memo and so they sparkle. It’s as if your body no longer serves one master. A subconscious acceptance of this intrusion. He pierces. But even when he touches just the tip The rest crumbles as if paving way for him to be engulfed into your soul. As if you are ready to no longer stand on your own. Finally you accept it. You smile. He also smiles. And as though telepathy is your language, You both look away. And every glance after is a perfect symphony The only shortcoming, the people around you. u
SPOTLIGHT
M.RUMBI
This month on spotlight we speak to South Africa based artist M. Rumbi. We delve into his life as a musician, his experiences, his ambitions, family and what we could expect from him in the coming years.
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SPOTLIGHT
Who is M.Rumbi? M. Rumbi is a producer, occasional rapper(more and more of late), sometimes singer and everyday creative. Tell us about your childhood?where did you grow up? As a child, I moved around quite a bit but my earliest memories are when we used to live in Manchester, England, which is where I started with music. We eventually moved back to Kenya which is where I spent the majority of my childhood -I’ve been to about 7 different schools and that’s across primary and secondary school, and is partly where my producer moniker “theNairobiNomad” comes from.Music is scattered across it, I did piano lessons on and off(first few by my mother), eventually picked up guitar lessons after my dad taught me the basics.I think the most interesting thing is I didn’t actively seek out music for a very long time, I didn’t understand why people enjoyed it so much. How long have you been in South Africa? have been here for four years. Tell us about your musical journey?How did it start? I’ve done music for the majority of my life albeit very inconsistently. I did piano and recorder lessons in my younger years though I eventually dropped the recorder. I picked up the guitar during secondary school and that is what I play mostly. In varsity, I started a music group called “Rozzi@Work” which helped me meet new artists as well pique my interest in music business and music admin. I think Tom Misch is the guy who turned me on to production, listened to his project “Beat Tape 1” discovered the “Are We Live” crew through him and I’ve been producing ever since.
lot of gigs and artists to work with. I don›t think I have ever gotten to experience what playing in and heading a live band would be like if I hadn’t come here. In terms of reception, not as great, most of my listeners and fans are predominantly based back home.
What/who influences your music? Internationally The Roots, Tom Misch, FKJ, Uyama Hiroto Goldlink, Jordan Rakei, there’s a ton of others How has the South African music scene treated you so but these guys have had the biggest impact on my sound far? Locally In terms of opportunities, it’s amazing. The KiliHippie, Fred Makoffu, Phinoshey industry is hard to break into but there’s a
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Would you say you have broken into the Kenyan market? Not yet but I think I’m getting close. I’m getting more buzz around my name, my listens are going up and I’m getting the opportunity to work with more established artists. Have you had any shows in Kenya before? As a solo artist no, but under Rozzi@Work yes. I really hope to be able to come home and do a few gigs, I feel I’ve grown musically and I’d love for people back home to experience that. Talk to us about Si me See me? A project I’m super proud of. It’s centred around duality, what we see as a person as and how they see themselves. In this case, that person is me. The project is a mix of “Si Me” this is not who I am but who society has said I am and thus dictate how I behave, and “See Me” this who I’ve known myself to be but find difficult living as because of the expectations set. I tried to mix the tracks up, so you have to come to your own conclusion on which track refers to “SI ME” and which refers to “SEE ME”. Maybe ask yourself which Rumbi do you know/which side have I shown you.
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SPOTLIGHT
How long did it take to work on this project? As a producer about 6 months, I made the first beats(about 3) over the last 3 days of December 2019 but I put the idea of the project together around March, just before the SA lockdown was instated. The writing was done two months later and it was just re-recording and mixing and mastering till I got it right. Why is music important to you? Music helped me experience a range of emotions I didn’t know existed and I became obsessed with making people feel what I felt. I’ve always told myself that I write music to be felt. Would you say music is paying your bills? Unfortunately not yet, but things are looking up - I’m staying hopeful. Tell us about Sincerely Daisy. What can we expect when watching the film and listening to the music? How did you end up on this project? I expect it to be something amazing, Xenia Manasseh was in charge of the music and she is one of the most talented artists in Kenya, it’s really hard to expect anything less than greatness. I made the track for Wendy, a few months after it dropped she hit me up and was like Nick Mutuma wants to use it in a movie. I was excited, sorted out the specifics and the rest is history. What can we expect from you in the coming days? A lot. Any artist whose worked with me can tell you I always have a lot of projects in the pipeline, the most concrete thing is an EP I’ll be dropping on the 6th of November 2020. It’s called “Not All That”, it’s something short and sweet and is a teaser for the direction I’m shifting my sound in. I’m working on a project with another producer called Moise Archipe (he did the bassline for “Just Another She” and “24, was I ever purple?” as well as the lead guitar
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and the latter track”) and a mixtape with one South African and one Kenyan rapper. But these are all things for 2021There’s also something that’s more of a concept than anything else which has a strong visual element to it, u
main feature
TED PAGE 8
JOSIAH
A pioneer of Kenyan pop music, a fashion designer, a father, a businessman, a director, the list goes on an on. Ted Josiah opens his home and his life to Usanii magazine and shares nuggets of wisdom that can be applied in everyday life.
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THE BEGINNING My story begins at birth, I would say because I was an only child when I was born. I am the eldest so I had a long period of time to go outside, I lived on a farm, experimented with things, played in my mind‌you know when you are alone you start to create things in my imagination so I ended up creating a lot of things in my imagination and that is why I became a creative I think. I started hearing songs in my mind, I started drawing pictures, I started doing things like these and then with time I took pen and paper and started to draw and I remember my grandma actually kept some of these photographs and pictures that I had drawn from the age of three and I was actually shocked that I was into expressing myself that young. My childhood was extremely nomadic, I travelled a lot, I was born in Mombasa and then a year later I found myself in Nakuru, my father moved to the states and my mom went back to be with her parents for a while and then I found myself in Nyahururu with my grandparents when mom moved to the States and then a couple of years later I moved to the States. By the time I was flying to America I knew Kikuyu, I knew Kijaluo because those were the only to languages I knew, because Kikuyu was the local language in Nyahururu and Luo was my mother tongue and we travelled to the states and then I picked up an American accent so my childhood had a lot of travelling an meeting different cultures, understanding people in different ways and adapting to people’s ways. I was raised by the entire clan, my grandma was very strict and she instilled something that I am very grateful for to date, my grand mom instilled work ethic. Now when I say grandmother and work ethic people always
look at me like what do you mean, but it was very simple, it does not matter whether you were a 2 year old, 3 year old,16 year old, you will wake up at 6.00 am. It does not matter how cold it is, and the slopes of Mt.Kenya are cold, you will get up and you will go milk the cows, you prepare the water for the cows, take the aramis for the adder and you milk the cows, then you make sure the milk is ready for the KCC man to pick up everyday. Everyday without fail and I adapted to that thing where I cannot sit still and do nothing, I must be doing stuff, I must be working, I must be constantly doing things because that is what I saw and that is how I was raised. I have a vivid memory of something that I did that I should not have done when I was 5. Because I used to tinker a lot with electronics, one day I messed up the TV, I put a hanger inside, I don’t know what the hell I was hoping but that scared the hell out of me but also I just became a person who liked tinkering with stuff and that is why up to date I will always be found in the studio environment, in an environment with stuff because I am one of those people who like knowing how do stuff work. Because I travelled a lot and because I travelled to place like Chicago, Naivasha, Nyahururu and growing up there I met such a diverse group of people who have very different languages, very different ways of life and then I came back and grew up in Kajiado and then I ended up in Nairobi. I understand Maasai, I understand Swahili, I understand kikuyu, I understand Kamba and that helped me in a sense because I can sit down and listen to a musician and the funny thing is I can hear what they need to become before they even know what they need to become, because of that movement that I had.
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They say that to travel is to open up your mind, now imagine to travel as a small child, as a three year old child for years it really broadens your perspective of life to a point where you can sit down and listen to an American and you can tell where they are from just by their accent but a normal Kenyan will just say ”uyo in mlami jo..ametoka majuu”(that’s a white person from abroad).
and good night.
I understand people and read people a lot because that is all I had. Consider, you are landing in America and you don’t understand the language so you have to read the situation and try and find out is this thing safe; am I just about to get hit because I was a black child and I would get beat up for being black by the white kids and then I would get beat up for being African by the black kids and they don’t like Africans, then I came back to Kenya and I have a thick American accent and I have to walk from St Michael’s which is in Jeri back to Buru and now I am a foreigner and everyone wants to bully me, so I am very good at reading situations before they unfold, which helped me in my career to read creatives before they become who they should be.
In school because I could not understand the language I would watch people and try and to figure out what is being said and that is how I learnt, I learnt by watching people and looking at people, even the piano I learnt it just by watching people, that is how I have been able to adapt to my career.
In the states for me the biggest challenge was learning English, as a child and having to learn English at the age of three. I had not interacted with English apart from hallo
I was in school when I was in Nyahururu but the learning was in kikuyu so going to the states and having to adapt to a whole new language, and then I wasn’t exposed to things as basic as soda so I am in the airplane and someone gives me something and I say I do not want tea cause I am thinking coke is tea.
I think young people are not allowed to tinker with things, people are not allowed to be expressive other than on social media, and when I say expressive on social media its just people abusing each other instead of even learning how to write a poem in Swahili. You tell a guy from Nairobi to write a shairi for one million shillings, they will go and Google it or you tell them can you compose a love song without any vulgar language…they can’t. If you look at my hands, I have a lot of cuts because as a child I used to make tin cars especially during the safari rally month ,
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nowadays the kids want to play PS and I am wondering what the hell are you playing PS for, go make your own damn PS. make your own fun, figure things out. That is how we create entrepreneurs and people who discover things; we cannot create innovators by giving them phones and play stations. Take you child out, let them go play with the goats they may become something. I look back to my early childhood and feel like, these days; kids do not have a bond with their parents. Every Saturday morning without fail my dad would tell me jump into the car and we would go to the record store and I would look at all these Vinyls and he’d tell me “you choose yours and I’ll choose mine.” every every Saturday without fail. Now One, that was a bonding time for us, do we in this new generation, even when we have kids, do we have time when it’s just me and my son or me and my daughter and say let me go bond, cause every one is busy with work when it gets to the weekend you just want to sleep and not talk to anyone and it is because you are overworked and you are really exhausted so the world is conditioning you not to raise your own child, not to bond with your own child, so you have a child whose only bond is the PlayStation. We have seen some kids abusing people on social media and they are really young and you are wondering, ”Who hurt you?”…It is because they do not have those bonds, they do not have those connections; they have no grounding at all. I look at it and I say we are losing the creativity, we are losing the connections, we are losing the spirituality, and we are losing all these things because of people running for some sort lifestyle that doesn’t actually even make sense.
You will fuck up. It is ok, pick yourself up, strap your boots, and keep going.
MUSIC AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
There is one thing I always say...use what you have in your hand to get what you want. I started a bag company with a smartphone, my shop…my smartphone, my bank…my smartphone, my marketing…my smartphone, my advertising…my smartphone, you are in a generation that has been given EVERYTHING and you are still begging. You are either a producer or a consumer, so I say this to Kenyans, we can consume all the Chinese nonsense that they bring down to the leather jackets, down to the fake Gucci and Prada, down to everything, we can consume them…no problem, we are just making jobs for the Chinese and giving them money or we can become producers and we can produce our own things.
main feature Then I realized along the way that I am busy pumping money into artists but artists are using me as a stepping stone, a launch pad, so I have just become like Ford Foundation, I am just dishing money out for people to do their own things and I thought to myself the age I am at right now, I want to leave a legacy, I want to do something that makes money, that builds people, not one person but any people, that enables many people to put food on their table and music wasn’t that. You do not get money from loyalties, there is no loyalty. So after the recording with Masauti, he started doing his thing, he decided he wanted to go back o Mombasa, he though t that my music was too intense for the kind of stuff that he wanted to do and the truth is, it was too intense for the stuff he wanted to do. What he wanted to do and what I wanted to do were polar opposites; I didn’t want to do pop music, I am not about a hit now…I am about a song that people will still listen to 20 years from now. I recorded Atoti in 2000,this is 2020 and Atoti is not dead, people have died but atoti is still alive, I recorded Unbwogable in 2002 and it is still being played, I recorded Kisumu 100 in 1999 and it is still being played...why? Because I look at timeless and there are people who look at time bound and we can’t meet and be on the same page. If I look at Tanznia there are a lot of successful women musicians for example Lady Jaydee, Thandi and a lot of others who are making it big and they continue rising. When you listen to their audio and video quality it’s on par, when you go to south Africa, you had Hugh Masekela you had Miriam makeba as equals, in Nigeria there are people like Asa who are big internationally and she is a very successful lady. I think in Kenya we are just assholes for lack of a better word because the men feel like they they can put the women down and there is no need for that…the plat is big enough for everybody.
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main feature So if a big female pop artist comes and she is beautiful what’s gonna happen; the first thing that is going to happen to that musician is when I send her to radio with her single all the presenters will want to enter her pants and they will tell her that without sleeping with them her song will not be played on my station, that is way I said we are sort of assholes and the same thing applies for television. So the men in power want to use the women in order to give those women the same opportunities that their counterparts have which is messed up. Talent is talent, when you see talent, lift it up and let it shine, don’t step on it…don’t misuse that talent and tell them you will go on my terms, that is rubbish; that’s in part why we are not seeing female musicians coming up. I am not listening to any Kenyan musician currently. The audio quality is horrible; it has nothing to do with the music. The professional recordings are not being donewell, you need to have good sound engineers, and you need to have speakers. When I trained, the person who trained me was from new york institute of technology, he wasn’t just an engineer, he was the kind of guy who would go down to river road, buy spare parts and come make his own mixer and he trained me with that in mind. I listen to fidelity, Fidelity is high quality sound recordings and that is what I always try to achieve in my recording and I have failed, many many times to a point where I do not even listen to my recordings because I hear the lack of good audio quality in those recordings, it has been for me the thing that I am trying to attain, its not a good song but a really crisp good recording and I don’t find that in Kenya.
There is a lot more opportunities for musicians now, there are a lot more radio stations, so you can call a friend and your music will be played on radio, when we started there was one radio station and you’d only get played on KBC general service and you’d only get
main feature ‹If you want it enough, it doesn’t matter what happens, things will be thrown your direction that sidetrack you very easily and if you are not discerning to know that it was brought to throw you off guard…you will go off guard.›
get played on KBC general service and you’d only get played one hour a week between 8.00 am and 9.00 am on Monday morning. I left Kenya for the UK because I had decided to do something very stupid, I decided to become an advertising guru for politicians, a very bad idea because when you roll with the big dogs you have to learn how to piss on the big tree and I had not figured out that I was going to need to piss on big trees. I did an advert that really irritated the people in state house and all it took was for Mama Lucy to say, ”tell those people to stop interfering with our advertising?” that’s all and she said that on national television. A couple of people came to deliver the message and Kenya became not too palatable for a music producer so my small balls and me left the country. However I came back because Home is home and politicians have a short term memory, I decided to come home for two reasons; I was leaving out of a suitcase which was very uncomfortable, I was in between Lagos, London and cape town, constantly training people in media, training people in production but not having roots, so I decided let me go home.
FAMILY
Regina was an angel. I have never known a person who is more caring, more loving and I am not just saying this, even the people who interacted her said there was something different about her and when she comes into your world, she changes it for the better. Regina came into this studio do a demo and I listened to it and I thought this is an angelic
PAGE 14 angelic voice and she had just suffered a out of pneumonia so she wasn’t really performing at her best but it sounded really tiptop and then after the music we sat down to talk, we started sharing ideas about fashion and stuff, we started realizing that we had so much more in common than just the music. We started designing together, we started building SwaRnb together, she didn’t like the name but she never said it she just rolled with it and we then realized that we both wanted to have a family, to have children, so we intentionally conceived. When we conceived it was a tricky journey because chances of her losing the child were very high so we decided maybe we take a break from fashion and everything and we will revisit when the baby is here and the baby is ok. When Jay came it was a handful, it was a lot of work we were trying to figure out how do we do that and when Jay was 3 months, jay’s mom passed away and two days before she passed I had just finished designing her logo for her brand because she was re-launching to he market and it was really rough but what she had done through that process was give me two babies, Jay Jay and the idea that I need to get my ass out of the music industry, out of the comfort zone, out of that place that I am used to and to a new space and that was the fashion space. When I started Joka Jok it was continuing her legacy I tell people, I am a bridge from mama Jay Jay over to Jay Jay’s generation, so I hope to hand Jay Jay over her company and Regina’s most enduring quality is that she was never judgmental, never ever judgmental. It didn’t matter who you are or where you come from. There is one guy here at the workshop working with us till now and he was her personal tailor and when she died that guy cried as though it was his child who died. At lunchtime she would go and cook for her own workers, she was just the kind of person who loved people and wanted to take care of people and everyone gravitated towards her
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when they had problems. Sometimes I’d tell her “ you carry so much load” and that is just the way she was. I knew she was the one at first sight the day I saw her walk toward me I knew, instantly I knew I am fucked. This one is coming to finish me; I am not going to be the same after this person. Grief is an ongoing process that never ends. Sometimes you can deal with it, sometimes you can’t, when you lose someone you love its even hard to explain to people that loss changes the tapestry of your whole being from inside out, your soul, your spirit, everything changes; nothing stays the same at all. I have coped with it by embracing it, I decide that this is a painful experience but it is my experience, I am not going to burry it in the sand, if somebody comes into my life they are going to have to understand. There are days when I crush and burn and I cannot deal with her loss, I am trying t o raise a girl by myself and there are days, I am just like it is what it is.
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A father plays a huge role in their daughter’s lives because a father is like a pillar. The weaker the pillar, the less you can build on, so in the absence of that pillar, the build becomes very weak and it looks for options to support itself and sometimes it looks for options that are not as supportive or robust so you find people who have self esteem issues because the pillar was not there, you find people who have trust issues because the pillar was not there, you find people who lack the confidence to achieve because the pillar was not there. If I just take those three things, Self esteem, lack of confidence no drive, what have I described? I have described a person who will never succeed because of things happening inside them not thing happening outside. It is important for men to be in their children’s lives. My message to my grandchildren. You will fuck up. It is ok, pick yourself up, strap your boots, and keep going. u
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GUEST COLUMNIST
WHY YOUR FAVOURITE ARTIST IS BROKE
BY SPENCER CORNELIA
Many new artists sign record contracts with labels thinking they will become rich and famous only to find out that they got trapped into an unfavorable record deal. In this article we are going to take a dive into the scummy music business, why some of your favorite musicians are broke and exactly how the music flows throughout the music industry. How many of you have heard popular musicians complain about their record deal?
How many times have you read news stories about drama with an artists and their record deal? Probably, all the time.After this article you are going to have an understanding of how the music business works and why you’ll see so many artists desperately wanting out of their deals. I recently watched a Netflix documentary detailing Lou Pearlman’s management of the Backstreet boys and Insync, one of the most important segments of that documentary was the celebratory dinner that Lou hosted with members of Insync. At the time Insync was selling millions of albums, had just completed a world tour and were given cheques of only $10,000 (Ksh.1,000,000). Where were the millions of dollars going?
Before we analyze where the money goes in the music industry, we must go back to the year 1999, travel to the dorms of a Boston Massachusetts university. Sean Fanning was a student at North Eastern University and made a decision that would forever change the music industry. While teaming up with Sean Parker, (most notably played by Justin Timberlake in The movie Social network) these two created Napster. Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing software that allowed users all around the world to share files, most notably music files. The software took off and accumulated over 26 million users; free music meant no more buying albums. Then record labels were in trouble, they had just enjoyed a decade of large profits as Cds were flying off the shelves, and even average artists were making hit records. The industry saw a 5x growth of record sales in the 90’s but the industry was ripe for disruption. (IMAGE 1.1) At the time the record labels generally had an 15% - 85% split with their artist. For every record sold the label would make 85% and the artist would take 15%. The labels (Universal music group, Sony music, warner music) were making billions.
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«Record Labels are just like Slavery. I would tell any young artist.. dont Sign.» (IMAGE 1.1) Due to the volume of sales the labels were cool with the artists making money from tours and merchandising because they were already fed, but when record sales dropped the labels needed to make their money. Enter the 360 contracts. 360 CONTRACTS The labels wanted to make a profit on everything the artists did. If the labels were not going to make their money on record sales then they could make it on tours, merchandising, personal appearance income or publishing income. Here is a breakdown of how major record companies invest in a new artist thanks to IFPI .ORG. (image 1.2) Record companies will give what is called an advance to artists; this money is given to artists to pay out personal expenses during the making of the album. They can pay rent, make their car payment or take drugs for boosting creativity; the purpose of the advance is to allow the artist to only worry about finishing the album. There are a lot of expenses that go into making an artist pop, this could be between 2,000,000 – 500,000 dollars of expenses before the artist even makes any money.
The reason why the title of this article implies that your favorite artists are broke is because these expenses are called recoupable expenses. Every contract is going to be different and how much is recoupable is going to be different from artists to artist. This is money that the record label invests in the artists though its not exactly an investment cause the artist actually owes this money back to the label, making it recoupable money for the label. A lot of these artists you may follow that grow a big social media following quickly, have expensive cars, rent large homes, own expensive jewelry, may actually be no better off than you or I. WHY? Because all the money that goes into creating the star must be paid back, remember the -85% 15% spilt the record labels typically have with artists for record sales. Lets say I am a new artist and the record company invests 500k dollars into my brand, my image, building my social media account, and my advance fees, they’re trying to create a star. Here is where the catch comes in…they eat first…they keep 85% off the top. If I sell 100,000 records and the label makes 10
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GUEST COLUMNIST IMAGE 1.2
much lower. You may sell 1,000,000 dollars in concert tickets but only 750,000 goes to you, then you have to pay your tour promoters, tour manager and any other people you have on staff. Don’t forget I still owe 250,000 dollars to the label so that gets paid first.
dollars a record, then I generated 1,000,000$ in revenue. The record company makes their $ 850,000 and I take home 150,000$, but my recoupable were 500,000,now I am in debt to the label. That’s right, I sold 1,000,000$ worth of records and I am in debt to the label. I still owe them the remaining 350,000 dollars. I guess will just tour and get a sponsorship deal, right? Remember when I mentioned the 360 deal? yeah..the record label has its hands in everything I do. Using the temple from digitalmusicnews.com who got it from Elliot Resnick, you can see how a typical contract would look like. (image 1.3)
Keep in mind that a lot of bands have multiple members so the pot of gold for the band gets split multiple times. These bands also have accountants, lawyers, producers and taxes to pay. Here are some relatable, noteworthy stories ; TLC filed for bankruptcy while selling millions of records, Ice Cube left NWA when he realized how little he was making, 30 seconds to mars was sued for 30 million dollars for breach of contract for not making their third album…. Toni Braxton filed for bankruptcy after selling millions of records,
“We had more success than we ever dreamed. We never expected to get rich, but we certainly didn’t expect to be millions of dollars in debt” - 30 SECONDS TO MARS IMAGE 1.3
The label may keep 50%-25% of gross revenue earned from various sources. You may sell 500,000 in merchandise, 250,000$ goes to you the other half to the label, but the label is going to charge you for the expenses to make all the merchandise so the net is going to be
Where the money goes Let’s breakdown where the money goes. When an artist records a song there are two different copyrights at play.
GUEST COLUMNIST Number -1 the composition of the song. Many artists do not write their own songs or produce all elements of the songs. For hip hop and rap, you have producers, featured guests and ghost writers, for other genres you may have background vocals, guitars or lyrics composed by someone else, these people receive royalties. Number 2 - THE MASTERS You have the final product which is known as the masters, you will hear this term all the time when artists are complaining about their record deal, this is the final version of the song that is release to the public. You’ll hear artists all the time talking about owning their masters, Taylor swift was recently in controversy recently with Scooter Braun surrounding ownership of her masters. If you do not own your masters then the labels own them and they can do whatever they like with them and they will be the ones profiting off of your music for eternity. Here is an example, every one in the making of Kanye West’s album the Life of Pablo is receiving royalties for their contribution, an artist like Kanye makes plenty of money but think about all the second level or third level artists who you follow who probably have similar amounts of help in the production of their album and remember, the label gets their cut from the top, all of those points are paid out from your advance and the budget provided by the label which are recoupable. Now you are probably thinking some of these artists have millions of streams on Spotify everyday, they must be making millions of dollars. Here are the words of Billy Korgan, singer of Smashing Pumpkins during an interview with Joe Rogen – “Look no further than the deals that the record labels cut with the streaming services. They got into ownership equity deals with the streaming services in an arrangement for them to have an equity position, they agreed to very low rates for the music, Bob Dylan’s song on Spotify? Bob Dylan is not getting a lot of money for that, but as Spotify
PAGE 20 and other services raise up in their equity position, the labels benefit .The label pimped out their own artists to take a greater equity position in a rising business” They basically devalued their artists and got equity in a company that is now worth more because the expenses are less and the artists has no say in the matter. Let’s say your album has 10 songs listed on Spotify, you will need almost 4000 complete album listens every single month in order to earn 1500$ a month. If your band has multiple members then the number of streams need to double or triple and if you don’t own the masters then the money gets split even more. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE I’ve built up this argument on why musicians are getting screwed by the record labels but lets think about this from the label’s perspective. The record label generally takes an artist with very little fan fare and very little opportunity to become a star. It is statistically not going to happen for a small artist to become a superstar without the help of a major label.
The labels invest large amounts of money possibly millions of success. Labels generally have numerous artists on their rosters and they are investing resources into all of them. I’ve seen articles that mention that only 5% of artists actually generate a profit, so the labels have to sign 360 deals, to make sure that the 5% that do succeed make enough money to cover all of the losses for the 95% of artists that don’t make money. Labels are basically working as a venture capital fund, invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into a lot of little companies hoping that one of them becomes a unicorn and you have a 20% share and a multiple billion-dollar exit. The artist who you will find complaining about the 360 deal generally are the largest artists
PAGE 21 because they are subsidizing profits for the artists who did not profit. The three main major labels (Universal music group, Sony music, Warner music group) have their system already established, they have the recording studios, the ability to buy up the radio, the teams established to market you and give you the biggest probability of success and in most cases they give you the only opportunity of reaching superstar status. The artists may see it as being a slave but from the label’s perspective, that’s just the price you pay forgetting access to the billion-dollar machine. Record labels are in the business of making money; they want to control the artist as much as possible. It’s a shady business full of corruption and conspiracies, if you are interested in these topics just take a look at the following stories: Britney spears and her conservatorship, Lil Wayne suing his metaphorical father Birdman for $50 million, P Diddy taking publishing credits for albums he didn’t even produce, Jay z overtaking Dam dash and becoming the CEO of Def Jam, The illegal practice of Payola and how record labels get around it.
GUEST COLUMNIST You can also research how a lot of artists sign multiple album deals and then the label doesn’t promote them or release their albums so they are a slave to the contract and unable to release any music to the public. According to a rolling stone article sharing data from the non profit music industry research association detailing that the average musician is making around 25,000 dollars a year. The real money is in running the labels and owning the music, this is why so many artists talk about the importance of owning your masters, that leaves all up and coming artists with a tough question-
Do you go independent and become a starving musician for years in the hopes of one day earning enough to become a full time musician or do you sign a 360 deal and give up all leverage for the entirety of your record deal. If you wanna become a star and have your face all over billboards in your favorite city you may just have to sign a deal with the devil. In the music business where flashing lights, fame and fortune are used to sell records everything you see may not quite be as glamorous it seems. u
THE TECH FORM PAGE 22
by
ALEX WAWERU Music has been around since the beginning of human civilization. From days we could only sing, monophonic to polyphonic music. Then in an instance, Tech is here, Here to stay. Then all over sudden, the ideas we knew from our history books don›t apply anymore. This change can be overwhelming and scary. What do I mean? Miserere mei deus was a score written a very long time ago and only existed within church halls until a boy genius walked in, heard it and later went home penned it from memory. All the different parts and harmonies and from memory put the whole score together. Now we can hear this beautiful piece or else it would have disappeared or changed form over time. If we keenly look into this story. Mozart has a divine gift obviously. However, there›s schools of thought to this either, Mozart didn›t have the tech distractions we had today. So his ability to retain and pen it down. Or, Mozart is just a genius. While 200 years ago, music literacy was a thing common to all learned people, there were massive works produced regularly, and these
classical moment were works on another level of sophistication and creativity. Think the over 200 works Chopin has written and all with a creative genius that has stood the test of time. Brings me to our generation. Is it that while tech has been able to strengthen distribution and quality of music distributed, it has killed creativity? I was recently able to view a netflix movie «the social dilemma». It shows much tech has built and yet ruined our lives. How social media algorithms are able to keep us glued to our phones all day as new suggestions of content that is in line with our personality. We may have lost many beautiful standards and works without knowing because a certain composer was unable to find his or her creative juices. Tech has also blown away our ability to rehearse effectively for performers and has given birth to many half baked musicians in the industry. Sad as it is. There›s always new content produced everyday and as tech becomes available the more substandard music crops up everyday. But although who is to tell what substandard is? People also seem to be consuming this kind of music. Since Rock and Roll begun, right after jazz and blues. There was a craze that hit the airwaves, it was the age of psychedelic rock. Artists would wear and have bizzare dressing choices. Play the kind of music you›d term as Tetrahydrocannabionol (THC) inspired music with interesting lyrics. Since the music through tech has evolved. While the music of the time was highly creative, things have changed over time. Today there is demand for new content, this has watered down what used to be a very standardised industry. However, Tech has been able to expose us to the world. We›re able to connect to people around the world to be able to learn vastly. Something we did not know in the past. Were able to learn directly from various legends and interact with their works in ways never possible before. I›ve seen ads for a popular
classical moment It bridges the distance between newbie students to legendary masters in the respective fields. This is a gift of technology. I can›t think of how many people in the past who would have wanted to learn from Yehudi Menuhin, Art Tatum, Ray Charles, Vladimir Horrowits, even Debussy and Rachmaninoff. This Tech has been able to do successfully. Therefore, Tech has both good and bad effects on our industry. What doesn›t anyway? For creators, It›s a good idea to be able to understand our various avenues of music making. Then we should be able to excersize activities that engage our creative processes. Be it vacations, strolls, walks, so that we can bring great new ideas to the world. We should understand tech in all totality and use this knowledge of tech to take our art to newer heights. Go forth unto the world. u
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