‘Breaking international’ is at the forefront of local musicians’ minds but in order to navigate the ocean you must first conquer the pond. Many musicians struggle to survive the South African music industry. With so many fish in the sea, it helps to understand just how deep the local water is. Music exchange, which took place at the Victoria Junction Hotel in Green Point Cape Town on from 22-24 March 2010, is an initiative developed to educate artists and producers about how the South African music industry functions, and how it can benefit them. One of the panellists at the conference, Sean Wienand of Headline Artist’s Management and former owner of Mercury (one of Cape Town’s popular live venues), believes that “practice makes perfect”.

According to Sean, the main challenge facing local musicians is money. Sean explains that any product requires capital investment in order to promote and gain retail traction. Bearing in mind that investment from record companies is on a steady decline largely due to the lack of investment capital available. This stems from a global drop in album sales, says Charles Goldstack (CEO Touchtunes Interactive, former CEO of Bertelsmann Music Group USA) who spoke earlier at the conference. Sean offers a solution to local musicians by suggesting that they develop creative marketing models and spend funds on carving out a space for themselves in the “over-populated, under-supported and under-resourced” market we operate in.

Yoel Kenan, former senior vice president of international marketing at Sony BMG, was among the speakers at Music Exchange commenting on ‘how to break international.’ Although it’s true that 95% of music is illegally downloaded, to the detriment of musicians, Yoel assures that in light of web 2.0 advances there has been an overall change in consumer behaviour and that music is more consumed today than ever before. With the new broadband capabilities available the digital revolution plays a pivotal role in the modern musician’s means of communicating a product to a target audience. New artists, as a result, have a better chance of getting recognition than ever before. Charles adds that this is where the record and publishing companies can assist artists in capitalising on these opportunities for commercial success.

Nick Motsatse, CEO of The South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), also spoke at the conference. Nick commented on how SAMRO are aiding musicians by helping them protect their rights and claim their royalties for their work regardless of the vast online mediums used. Nick spoke on the implementation of the “Needle Time Right” for performer’s protection right. This new law will protect the rights of musicians when their music is played live. The Needle Time Right ensures that the performer, composer and publisher will all receive their respective royalty payments if the song is registered with SAMRO.

Other organisations working towards strengthening the local industry include The Cape Music Industry Commission (Cape MIC) who are an NGO uniquely placed to facilitate and support music and economic growth in the Western Cape. They achieve this through the number of initiatives put into operation on a regular basis. A recent being a workshop geared towards teaching individuals how to produce a live music event, “They are doing some fantastic work in the education field,” says Sean, “Commercial ventures such as Your LMG magazine that are all striving to elevate the cause we all believe in. In addition, most venue owners, retailers, labels and peripheral music industry operatives are all contributing something to the cause.”

When I asked Sean about his predictions for the future of the Industry, he said that it was a big question, and one that he would probably have to charge me for to answer. He did say that the industry is surprisingly healthy and that the future looked bright, for musicians and business men alike.

Being among one of the many fish myself, I too find it hard to fight the strong back-current on my journey up the stream of music success. In the words of Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse (former SAMA Lifetime Achievement Award winner) “The road ahead is long, but what you have as a talent belongs to you. Be yourself, invest in yourself, and your talent will serve you.”

Tim Lester

I just want to thank you for an incredible conference. I’m thrilled I was able to attend, as it was just the motivation I needed (at just the right time) to keep going.

Will definitely see you next year!

All the best,
Shannon H

Cape Town (April 6, 2010) Africori are proud to announce that they have joined forces with the V&A Waterfront World Media and Legacy centre to provide a service whereby media and business personnel who are visiting South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup have direct and easy access to pre-cleared music from around Africa.

The V&A Waterfront World Media and Legacy centre provides a range of turn-key solutions designed to meet media needs and deadlines. Among these solutions is Africori’s catalogue of pre-cleared original music consisting of thousands of songs from the African continent. Media and Business visitors to Cape Town will be able to find and license suitable, pre-cleared music using the Africori web platform.. Africori’s advanced search engine will ensure that users will find the music they need and license the rights complication free.

“Licensing music from around Africa is never an easy task. With so many rights holders and access of information not always straightforward, music users such as TV & Film producers, advertising agencies can now instantly search and license music from the continent using the Africori platform. Most importantly I believe users will be astounded by the quality and wide variety of music the African continent today has to offer”.– Yoel Kenan. CEO and Founder of Africori.

“Without African music, the “Sights and Sounds of Africa” become just sights. We believe that every edited highlight and report from South Africa during 2010 and beyond can benefit from a unique, authentic African beat. Our partnership with Africori is therefore integral to the offering of the entire V&A Waterfront Media & Legacy Centre and we are delighted to be working with them.” – Martin Cuff, Project Director V&A Waterfront World Media and Legacy Centre

About Africori:

Africori is the first business-to-business synch licensing platform for African music connecting independent artists based in Africa with advertising agencies, film/TV producers, music supervisors and any businesses anywhere in the world that need to license music for their films, TV shows, documentaries, commercials or video games. The site was launched in February with a vast collection of music from all over the continent. Africori is not genre specific but rather looks for songs of good recording quality and all music rights are pre-cleared.

About the V&A Waterfront World Media and Legacy Centre:

Whether you are a broadcaster or blogger, photographer or publisher, the V&A Waterfront World Media & Legacy Centre offers a range of turn-key solutions designed to meet your specific needs and your deadlines. Based in the safety and comfort of the world-class V&A Waterfront precinct, but within a ridiculously short stroll from the Cape Town Stadium, the V&A’s Media Centre includes hot desks with high speed internet access, desk-top editing facilities, camera, lighting and equipment hire, libraries of rights-cleared music, photography and HD video footage, production services from live studio broadcasts to roving news teams to single photo-journalists on the hunt for a unique story, studio space and camera positions through the Waterfront and beyond, and a consumables store that sells everything from batteries to flash discs, and tape stock to notepads and pens.. For more info visit: www.waterfrontmediacentre.co.za

See also: http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?from=rss_&fArticleId=5413049

Very impressed with rss technology.

Regards
Afsana

Blues Room Sandton Sat, 3rd April 2010

- Doug Dee

Thank you for a hands-on workshop!
With your help I created a blog, soundcloud profile, twitter feed and facebook page…Wow!
I look forward to start using these soon…

All the best,

Gideon

Brian Benatar (from Facebook Wall)

Hill goes full-time

Myers announced the resignation of Tim Hill, who has played a pivotal role in organising the conference, from Totalmedia to join the Music Exchange team on a full-time basis adding his marketing, media and PR skills to the team.

An annual national conference

The ultimate goal of Peter Lacey and Myers, along with the rest of the Music Exchange team, is to reach the status of other large conferences like Design Indaba and Tourism Indaba in the country. Within the next five years or so they’d like to position Music Exchange as an annual national conference hosted in Cape Town for the entire South African music industry including all genres.

The event took place at the Protea Hotel Victoria Junction from 22 – 24 March 2010.

For more information, go to www.musicexchange.co.za.

We will be holding Music Exchange 2011 around the dates of the Argus cycle tour and will confirm these with everyone as soon as they are set in stone.

We have an exciting journey ahead of us and we look forward to sharing our plans with you shortly. In the mean time, we would like to hear any feedback, recommendations and comments from you so that we can keep up the quality and success of Music Exchange going forward. Furthermore, we would be grateful if you could please write a couple of lines about the conference that we can post on our feedback page on www.musicexchange.co.za.

Best regards,

Sipho, Martin, Peter and Tim