By TERENCE MISELO
South Africa based music promoter and artiste manager Moxie Katowa has urged Zambian artistes looking to make it international not to bank their hopes on collaborating with big names only but come up with proper strategies and specific contracts to make it international.
Katowa, a Zimbabwean born but now established in South Africa and working with artistes across the continent of Africa says collaborating with international artistes means more than just doing a song.
” Once the deal for the collaboration has been agreed, if the artiste’s aim is to grow fanbase and to be big and known in other countries, then the featured artist needs to include a clause which states that they agree to promote the song on their social media platforms by posting and tagging the artiste and song besides just making a song and video together,” he says adding that this will create exposure for the song to a wider audience and grow the fan base for our Zambian artists in the featured artiste’s country.
“In my experience with most Zambian artistes that I was part of the collaboration deal negotiating team for, the artistes are just excited to feature a big artist, and forget that there is more that needs to be done after featuring. This includes building up the hype for the project through vigorous promotions and collaboration awareness, otherwise the song will die a natural death and fans will quickly forget the feature.”
He said it is unfortunate that this happens after having paid the featured artiste exorbitant fees.
” Once the collaboration fee is received by the featured artiste, in most cases they disappear and don’t care what happens after. These featured artistes take consideration of the intended artiste’s fanbase and look at the number of followers they have. If they are not impressed with the number of followers, they just cough a figure, take it or leave it. Thus making it difficult for us, the negotiators, as we have to Google past articles of the artistes and who they worked with before instead of it being automatic. “
Katowa has further proposed that Zambian artistes must not only target big artistes from other countries but also work with those hungry for fame.
“The point is, our artistes don’t always need to feature “big name” artistes. They can also sometimes go for the hungry, “up coming” talented artistes that will be willing to enhance their fan bases and vice versa. If a huge Zambian artiste like our queen Mampi is looking for a collaboration, I wouldn’t advise her to go for a Tiwa Savage level artiste because those artistes will just get that money without even promoting her in their countries. Rather an up and coming artiste will always mention the names of their collaborators in shows and on radio,” he said.
“This will help our artistes to grow their fan base.
It’s important who you feature, big artistes don’t equal big songs and fame. They cost more than their return on investment. Whereas a “smaller” artiste will cost less yet will create greater exposure and hits. “
Katowa has since advised Zambian artistes to work with strategic partners to advance their careers.
” We need to help our Zambian artistes to go international. They need great promoters and media gurus who will educate and guide them on a step by step of how to win in the international arena,” he adds.
” I strongly believe that Zambia can run this music scene. I have dealt with many African artistes and Zambia is certainly the cream of the crop. If we are able to groom them, most other African artistes will be rushing to Zambia begging for collaboration.”
