The Sunday News
Raisedom Baya ASrts Focus
I recently read an entertainment story that said local artistes are not worth paying for during live shows. In fact the story read “Byo Artistes are not worth $5.” My immediate reaction was to ask from whose perspective the reporter was writing. Who was evaluating the artiste here? Was it the audience saying they are not prepared to fork out a minimum of $5 to get entertained by local artistes? If it was the audience why were they saying so?
For years now there have been stories about people in Bulawayo having no money and being very reluctant to fork out enough to be entertained by local artistes. But who were all those people at the Kalawa Jazmee Show in December? Were those not local people? Bulawayo people? That Bulawayo people have no money is total crap, if you ask me. Their absence at shows featuring local artistes has nothing to do with money. It is purely an attitude problem.
Was the evaluation coming from promoters? If so why would a promoter say something as inflammatory and as insensitive as that? And a local promoter for that matter! Was it a case of sour grapes? Local comedian Ntandoyenkosi Moyo believes it is dangerous to let promoters determine the value of artistes as they will obviously undervalue artistes with the aim of realising maximum profits. There is some grain of truth here. The comedian believes arts practitioners should come up with a viable valuation system.
I couldn’t agree more with the young artiste. Local promoters have a tendency to dictate things in the sector. They have price tags for everything. Where they get the prices from is anyone’s guess. The only funny thing is that the majority of these promoters are fly-by night businesses seeking to make a quick buck in the arts. But the truth of the matter is that there are no quickies in the arts business. Please pardon my French. In arts you invest and returns, if they do come, take a long time.
Was the $5 evaluation coming from an artiste or an arts critic? To be honest the screaming headline got my attention. The issue resonated well with me. I am an artiste who, like others, has tried to sell his wares and at times have been told we can’t pay you that much because your other colleagues are charging far less. One of the reasons why it has been difficult to have standard prices in the arts sector is the disunity and dishonesty among artistes. We are not united. We do not speak with one voice and we love undercutting each other. Promoters and buyers of our products are having a feast at our expense all because there are no standards.
Here are some questions to think about. How should we measure an artiste’s worth? Should we measure it by the performance fees one demands? Should it be by the number of newspaper articles one generates per week? Or should it be by the number of CDs one sells per year or simply by the number of people one draws to his/her shows?
When I asked fellow colleagues and arts consumers the same questions I was surprised by some of the responses. Nkululeko Innocent Dube, the director of IYASA, said:
“I measure my worth by my ability to sustain myself and my team. The rest, media, sales, and attendance are means to an end. Only you know how much you invest in your product and how much you expect out of it. You name your price, just like other businesses name theirs and we all buy their products. If a client or promoter feels otherwise or wishes to negotiate then we negotiate. That’s how we work, we allow negotiation but we name the price, we are the seller.”
Nkue Nkala added that “artistes have different values, in most cases it’s about the number of people that an artiste pulls to shows, how far their music goes -whether through sales or piracy and obviously the publicity that comes with these.”
And Archie Mhone summed it up beautifully: I guess there are different ways to value an artiste and here I use the term very loosely, DJ, percussionist, imbube practitioner, musicians, etc. The artiste has to value or put a value (realistic) to himself on his person and be able to back that up. That value should then speak to the needs of the consumer, the consumer being anyone from an individual, a venue owner, a promoter, a corporate or society. Each consumer’s needs are different and should be addressed separately and the artiste should be able to articulate their value to that individual body in terms that are understandable.
For example individual (do I like your music? does it make me want to dance?), venue owner and promoter (will people enjoy your music, will you fill up my venue? Will the people you attract spend money at my venue?) corporates (which demographics do you appeal to? Will our message be believable/deliverable with you as our mouthpiece? How do you compare to other mediums of marketing?).. But most importantly you must first believe in yourself and YOUR value…
Dear reader what do you say? How should we measure an artiste’s worth? Send your responses to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
