EENHANA – Technological advancements across the world are rendering the music industry unrewarding, particularly in developing countries like Namibia, as musical compact discs (CDs), just like records and cassettes, are being elbowed out of the showbiz industry paving way for online music platforms.
With the world presently embracing digitisation, the recording industry is certainly experiencing a lot of change, altering the playing field for most musicians – up and coming to be precise, and thus the need for musicians to keep abreast with technological trends cannot be overemphasised. Musicians all over the world are now opting to sell their music online through certain social and professional forums such as reverbnation, sound cloud and YouTube, to mention a few. Not only have these advancements crushed the conventional formats for distributing music, they have also given piracy more leverage. Musicians ideally use hardcopy presentation to market their products through media formats such as CDs, which are now being distributed at cheaper rates than in previous years.
Local musicians, however, says they have not been feeling much of a pinch from the inevitable change. Rather they are greatly being affected by piracy, through these technological advancements though. Ondangwa’s Kauko Negongo, also known as CK in the music circles here in the North, says the situation is a win or lose one requiring vast assessment from all artists. “It’s a 50- 50 situation. Most people haven’t embraced it but the trend is fast growing. It will obviously take time for African countries such as Namibia to adapt. Judging from what I have seen, most people still prefer to use CDs instead of these USB flash devices. Mostly it is those who are well-off that prefer to preserve originality, as compared to the masses that use flash sticks. Even in the homes you would realise that most home theatre systems don’t have a USB flash sticks ports, and only have CD racks,” says CK.
However, he adds that these advancements are destroying the industry in the sense that people that pirate their music have been given a pivot to practice crime.
“As I speak with you now, one of my latest songs is already in the streets of Oshakati, yet I don’t even know how it got there,” he wonders. CK is also of the view that the Namibian law enforcement agents had adopted a laid back approach when it comes to dealing with disc peddlers. “Not all of us get a chance to perform live shows, and we rely heavily on our work through selling CDs. The law should make an effort to address this situation, and perhaps introduce conservative channels of selling our music,” he suggests.
Another upcoming artist, based in Rundu, Small Be, says it was all about adaptation. One must either shape up or ship out. “It’s all about adaption, back in the day there were record players and musicians were confined to those formats but eventually adapted to the next generation, which was the cassette era and eventually to CDs,” views Small Be. In the next five years or so, it’s true that we may move on to other formats such as USB Flash Drives as the digital music transferal medium of choice- but today musicians can still benefit immensely from not only having CDs as an item for sale, but to use as a promotional tool to be put in the hands of the right people. “We know that to earn a living from this we need to have music available for sale to fans, both online and offline, and if you are about to go out on a tour or have a scheduled show, you really must bring your CDs. Fans want something they can take home with from the show. The CDs can either be sold or given away but need to be presentable. Make people love you and you will find that selling your music through conventional and non-conventional methods, having the same desired effect,” says local DJ from the Ohangwena Community Radio, DJ Honey
Nonetheless, it is the artists’ duty to adapt to the present technological advancements in order to survive in the era that is fast witnessing most music carrying tools being outclassed by digital ones.
By Clemence Tashaya