“Zimbabwean fans
suck! They never come to our shows! They want to pay $15 for Sean Kingston but
won’t pay $5 for local shows”
Every artiste’s
favourite line. Have you guys ever tried thinking WHY the local fans are like that? It is actually quite simple. YOU
are not worth even their five dollars. This is when the average Zimbabwean
artist will want to bring to our attention the fact that Sean Kingston got
slayed by Winky D and a couple of local acts at his concerts and Zimbos still
won’t pay $5 to go watch them.
A good number of
Zimbabwean artistes do not understand one thing. YOU are a brand! You need to
market your brand. Your brand needs to be worth my $5 for the show or $3 for
the CD. It’s simple, sometimes the music you make as Zimbabwean artistes will
be more entertaining for me as a fan than the international act but you
packaging is crappier than kiddies underwear bought at Powersales.
Why I won’t come to your show
As a fan I’ll be
honest. I don’t give a two damn rat rectums how much I love your song, how many chart
topping songs you’ve made, if the flier/poster to your show looks like it was
designed and printed kuna Mbuya Nehanda or Chinhoyi Street you’re guaranteed
not to see my money. Zimbabwean artistes need to know that from the moment they
get into the public eye the marketing game starts. Of course when you start off
there are some not so awesome gigs like
Agric Show slot performances or a show at a high School at their variety show. The
thing is, you never know who is watching or who is there! If you can barely
stay upright and are staggering all over the stage because of your intoxication
at a sponsored event, do you think I will be there when you do your own thing?
This is why I
will spend my money on Mi Casa/Bryan Adams/*insert international act here. I
will spend that money there and NOT on you because I’m guaranteed of
organisation. Even if the sound check goes on forever at the international
act’s show, I’m still almost guaranteed of a good show, good to excellent sound
system and a well planned event in general. I go to a local show that is a
collection of local artists and I get a sound system that sounds like two dollar earphones, a longer than a Harry
Potter movie sound check (where there’s no band), and guys passing two
microphones among the six of them! THAT is why you are not worth my money!
Music is a
product just like any other. Artists need to learn what exactly it is that fans
pay for. Sometimes fans pay for exclusitivity, sometimes ambience of a place,
and some fans place a lot of value on time. Artists need to know exactly why
local fans are keeping their money in their pockets.
Why I won’t buy your CD
Another
Nehanda/Chinhoyi St artwork job! I am not going to touch this. Or if it’s a
princo CD, title written in marker ink, in your Hwindi handwriting, sooo NOT going to buy this. Your album art is a
picture of you paDurawall next door
with text editing that looks like it was done on a phone, yup you guessed it,
NOT buying it!! Maybe won’t even listen to it. And if I was a radio DJ, the
only air time your music would have is between the distance from my hand and
the refuse in a bin! Guys printing CDs doesn’t
cost much. The costs are honestly negligible. Please do just that.
The fans also
won’t buy your CD if you cannot invest in yourself (which I feel is a big
problem with Zim artists). Just because I said invest in yourself doesn’t mean we’re
saying print t – shirts. We mean the
simple things; there are a lot of marketing gimmicks that you can do for free
to make your music known to us. Look at Noble Stylez; he took on one of the
most happening stables in the country and made noise on Facebook until he was
heard. Now people know him. Now people know that there’s something called
“Masofa panze”. Or look what Few Kings
did at the Big Chill; having guys in crowns sell the CDs, a website. It’s the
little things like that, that can make a scrooge buy your CD. At the same time sometimes artistes must be
willing to spend money.
…Because gosh you videos are appalling..
We cannot be the
only Zimbabweans tired of videos without concepts or themes that come from Zimbabwean
artists. How hilarious is the church concept on the King Shaddy “Machira Chete” video? Or who remembers
the wonderful simplicity of the Simba Tagz video for “Stronger”? If you suck at conceptualizing, get someone who can help
you. We are tired of videos that look like you were only given a day to come up
with a concept.
And fellow fans,
I’m sure we’re all tired of projects that obviously had no time invested in
them. You listen to it and it just sounds like this guy was rushed through
production. The content is stupid, the quality just as bad. Like seriously, on
average, how much time do our local artists spend on their albums/mixtapes? And
to make it worse, when it’s done, this guy just gets up on a random Tuesday
morning and posts that his album is out! What? I mean, WHAT? Your album is out?
What album? You’ve been working on an album? Not even a countdown?!? Is that
really hard? “Guys, my Mixtape drops in X
days”. Just push a little, do some makeshift marketing. ANYTHING really!
Guys look. I
work a shitty 8-5 job. I have a shitty boss, who’s on my case every breathing
moment. This right here...(*waves a wad f $1 notes)...is hard earned cash. You
need to show me that you are worth it. Some albums sound like they were
competed in a matter of weeks, like someone rushed you to release your album.
The result: shoddy workmanship! I’m not about to take my wallet out and pay for
that music. People cry that there’s no corporate partnership with the music
industry. Corporate will not partner with you solely on the basis of you having
three or four records that are on born-free-crew-level rotation on radio and in
the clubs. They will also look at the package that is you the artiste and that
is where the decision to partner comes. Stunner seriously reinvented himself(or
his lady at the time did so) and he got a lot of corporate buy-in, Winky D
created the Ninja brand and it
resulted in a lot of corporate buy-in. If it was about how many of your songs
were hits, Roki would have corporate buy in as well, but we all know that is a
good product with flawed packaging!
So our view,
make yourself a brand, invest in the little things, invest in some of the big
things, take time on your projects and give us the best of you. You’ll be
surprised how many people may actually pay for your work.
PUSH
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