SLOW GROWTH FOR MUSIC INDUSTRY IN 2021

Mbabane  - When Covid-19 hit two years ago, the local music industry was in shambles as most artists, upcoming and already established, seemed to be losing hope in continuing with their music careers.  

This was because of the little money they were making at the time of lockdown restrictions, where almost all year round they were not getting bookings for gigs.
Fast forward to 2021, that we just closed off a few days ago, Eswatini musicians say the local music industry has gone into a catastrophic decline, exacerbated by the pandemic and the recent unrest that took place in the kingdom. “We have been persevering through the hardships the industry has faced over the past year, this being restrictions and lockdown rules set in place because of the unrest and the pandemic. So basically we again in the past year have not made money,” said local songstress Shinely Greens.

Recorded music income in the country has in the year 2021 shrank by 2.8 per cent, according to Eswatini Broadcasting Information services’   (top 20 chart show)  Bongani DJ Tizalami Dube, as physical music sales and performance rights income plummeted. Eswatini did see a big growth in streaming revenue in 2020, at least in percentage terms, but this wasn’t enough to compensate for other losses. Dube said while Swaziland Arts Music Assocition(SWAMA) membership stood at nearly 500 during the free-registration era of 2017 to 2020, the reintroduction of subscriptions in 2021, in a bid to realign with the SWAMA Constitution, saw the number of registered members decline to about 100 members.

“However, artists in the country are way over 1 000 as they are not obliged to be members of any association. Growth of music in the country, therefore, cannot be attributed solely to affiliation to associations, but can be measured by the number of new names that feature on various shows throughout the country. Young artists are emerging, and claiming their spots in the industry through self-driven media, particularly social media. YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Live, and IG Live have fuelled this unhindered growth, and led to the famed ‘opening up of the industry’, he said. Dube went on to reveal that local House music was the most streamed genre in the year 2021.

Releases

“Thanks to world class releases by mainstream and deep house artists, music lovers in Eswatini had something to stream. The release of the Vault Unlocked: Eswatini Dance Artists marked the peak of the genre’s dominance in 2021, as artists like Slotta, Parcel SWZ, Nakiso, King Jwase, Canny Deep, DJ Cup, Antidotes, +268, among others, dropped new songs that received massive streams on various premium sites,” he said. In terms of music videos, Hip hop and House music artists did the most in 2021, according to the musical maestro and MTN SWAMA member. SWAMA  is the largest national association of emaSwati artists and an affiliate of the Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture.

“We saw artists like Lyrikal Busta, Amarii, Sean Cast, Skinny G, DJ Cup, Vibes of the Gene, Mandisa, Oxygen, Chidoz, Khole, M Nation, among others, releasing high quality videos that received massive views on YouTube. Some of these videos found their way to South African stations like Channel O, MTV Base and Trace, while local stations Eswatini TV and Channel YemaSwati gave them an unlimited platform,” added Dube.

Answering the question how the industry has played a role in changing lives of people in 2021, Dube said the arts industry as a whole demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that arts can play a vital role in social awareness issues, what with an initiative like ‘Jovel’iIndustry’, which saw artists playing an influencer role in promoting vaccination against Covid-19. Also, the arts associations played a pivotal role in influencing the operationalising of the Copyrights Act of 2018.
SWAMA, ACAESWA and the Choral Association were instrumental in the formulation of regulations that will see the setting up of the royalties’ collection society. Already, government, through the Ministry of Commerce, has already put up the office of IP Registrar, and an experienced registrar has been appointed.

The industry is working together with the minister of Commerce and minister of Sports, Culture and Youth; and the associations to set up the societies. These were great strides that were made on the backdrop of a pandemic that had rendered the arts industry closed for the greater part of the year. Before Covid-19 disruptions, Eswatini artists were already making waves outside the country, with artists like Touch of Soul, Bholoja, Sands, Pele Pele, A2Z Fusion, Mdura, Smalls the Comedian, KrTC, Gogo and Slwane, !Sooks, Symphony, Amanda Mo, among many others, getting regional and international gigs and/or features.

The music production in Eswatini is already First World, what now lacks is a nationally-driven campaign to export our talent to the world, the same way Nigeria invested in exporting their music and films. What will expedite the first world mantra in the arts is the adoption and adaptation to the digital era. The fourth industrial revolution compels industries to digitise their operations, including their reach to their markets. A structured approach to this is needed.

Musicians

Although live concerts brought in money for musicians in the previous years (MTN BUSHFIRE, LUJU FESTIVAL, FNB Smoothfest etc)  most local artists made their money through small events such as performing at private parties and weddings, which for the part of 2021 were allowed to be hosted, making artists earn something to sustain them while it lasted. On another note, speaking to the ‘growth/decline of the local music industry’ renowned award-winning producer Kangaroo has come out to blame piracy for the slow growth of the music industry.

“We couldn’t migrate to digital like other countries; the costs were initially too high. Also, our traditional African music, our gospel … the buyers are not digital. They want to buy cassettes. But record bars like CNA have closed down, so they buy their tapes from the street sellers. We can’t fight this. We can’t fight it because the major record labels don’t want to work with the local guys. So the local producers start fighting among themselves for the crumbs of the market.
We would need unity to fight this. But there is no unity in the industry in Eswatini,” he said. In Eswatini live music industry, January to Easter is always the dry season. People normally survive by setting aside earnings from the previous three quarters and festive season bookings. The unique circumstances of 2021 sabotaged this in two big ways.

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