Understanding the SA music-scape

We have a long and proud history of music that has created some top-class stars and industry personalities, not to mention memorable international hits. Solomon Linda’s ‘Wimoweh’ or ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, Miriam Makeba’s ‘Click Song’ or Clout’s ‘Substitute’ spring to mind.

 

Some of the world’s top record producers hail from South Africa, like Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin), Mutt Lange, Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley and Robbie Robb. Manfred Mann was a South African, and Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin, both from Durban, were members of the Beach Boys in the early ‘70s. Shaun Welgemoed from Seether has shown more recently that South African music has what it takes on the international scene, and Goldfish are showing the same with dance music. Our jazz artists like Miriam Makeba, Pops Mohammed, Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela have all proved that this country can and does produce top-class musicians. We have an enormous legacy of musical excellence, one that we should be more conscious of, and we should realise that we don’t have to hold back just because of where we come from.

 

Who are you talking to realistically?

 

Despite the fact that we have generated so many international stars, our own industry has remained small and fragmented, and your chances of making a good living out of music domestically are directly proportional to the genre of music that you play. This is not to say that you will certainly be successful if you play in these particular genres, but rather that, according to the existing buying patterns in this country, there are some areas that are doing much better than others.

 

Gospel is quite simply the biggest selling genre of music in South Africa and gospel artists have a large circuit of churches and church events to play at – and as a result a large target market. Jazz also has a very big market to appeal to and most accomplished jazz musicians are able to make some kind of living from their art. This is mainly due to the profusion of gigs available and the fact that it is quite acceptable for serious jazz musicians to be playing standards or covers of old jazz classics as part of their repertoire. Commercial Afrikaans music is one of the fastest growing and biggest success stories of South African music. The Afrikaans music industry has typically always been strong, but since the mid ‘90s has ballooned massively into a highly lucrative and popular music sector.

 

African traditional music and what has become known as “afro-pop” are also big players in our local business. Maskanda does very well, and one only has to think of Freshlyground and Malaika to see how well afro-pop is doing. Kwaito has achieved massive radio play and cultural success, as well as record sales, but does seem to be steadily losing ground year-on-year to afro-pop and hip hop. After many years of struggling in this country, hip hop is undergoing a growth spurt and looking good. Most other genres in South Africa then form the bit players or fringe elements of the industry. Genres like reggae, heavy metal, punk, hard rock and pop-rock struggle to find a market. This is despite the fact that their international counterparts sell well in this country. A form of pop-rock known as “adult contemporary” bucks the trend somewhat, with artists like Prime Circle, Arno Carstens and Just Jinja doing well in the 25-and-up age-group. This is mainly thanks to regional radio stations with strong adult contemporary playlisting policies adopting them as flagship South African artists.

 

Radio quotas

 

The local quota that was set up as an advisory level of local content for South African broadcasters does seem to have paid some dividends, although the quota percentage is clearly not high enough and allows too much content that is not music to qualify for broadcasters to fulfil their quotas. Currently the South African music quota is set at 25%. Compare this to Holland and France where it is 40% for commercial radio and African countries like Ghana which has a quota of 75% for it’s local music. Add to this the fact that stations are allowed to count gig guides and interviews to offset their quota. Even at 25%, this should mean that 1 in 4 songs played on the radio should be South African, which is clearly not the case.

 

Domestically, who you are playing to does depend largely on what genre you are playing. While in an ideal world this would mean anyone from any background who happened to like that genre of music, this is fairly rigidly split along racial lines in South Africa, thanks to radio stations persisting in a race-based view of who likes what genre of music that has predominated since the apartheid days and seems in little hope of being changed. Luckily, the internet and South Africa’s growing international profile means that, just because you are South African and live down here, doesn’t mean you cannot reach an international market.

 

 

Where can you go, what is possible?

 

As we have seen, there is the opportunity for success right here in South Africa. In fact, as our industry grows, those chances for success grow more likely every year. And, if you believe that you can succeed no matter what your genre as long as you plan effectively and work hard, then your chances here are good. The trick is to remember that there are plenty of people out there who want to be famous, rich musicians. If you want to be among that number, then you have to work harder and be better than the competition in order to succeed in your goals. If you are not going to set any goals in the first place, it hardly seems fair of you to complain that you aren’t rich or famous, does it?

 

Apart from the fact that there are several large, major record labels in South Africa, independent record labels are springing up all the time. So much so that a specific representative body, the Association of Independent Record Companies (AIRCO) was brought into being to protect the interests and rights of independents. Independent labels typically sign more artists than majors, take more chances and are more connected to the street where the music is coming from. All of this means that there are many companies out there looking for material and artists to sign.

 

A connected world

 

In the modern recording environment, artists who know their business can even opt NOT to sign to a label and use the internet and digital technology to record, distribute and sell their own music, without ever needing to share any of their money with a record company at all. Thanks to the internet this also means that South African artists are able to generate momentum and a profile online, and access and sell to international markets, spreading the net for their sales far wider than just these borders without even leaving home.

 

The point about all of these options is that, in theory at least, anything is possible. Once this is acknowledged, it is up to you to make a firm decision about what you want to achieve and commit to making it happen. You have to have the talent, of course, but more importantly you have to know where you want to go and plan ways to make that happen. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a folk or traditional artist who never leaves your home country. If that is what you want and you act powerfully to make it happen, no one can criticise you. But if you continually say you want to break into the international market and you don’t even own a passport, then you are fooling no one but yourself.

 

Originally published in David Chislett's One, Two, One, Two: A Step By Step Guide To The South African Music Industry. Download a free copy of the book at www.davidchislett.co.za.