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Local Content (that's a horrible terminology anyway) - what has it got to do with Music & Musicians and the development of a music (NOT a record) industry? The advocators of (so called) local content claim that they have the interests of local musicians & the development & transformation of music at heart. What a load of rubbish those good intentions are turning out to be. We are no closer to developing an infrastructure that will go into building a music industry than we were 30 years ago. Musicians' pension, benevolent and disability fund? Paul Simon donated R400 000 to SAfrican musicians in 1988. And it's gone missing. Just like that? Where are the education, the information and history elements of music within that local content? Surely ICASA, the government (and the recording musicians with their entitlement flags) must realise by now that nobody owes any musician a living - especially not professional recording artists. That the fight for a slice of local content on top-40 radio & TV has gone far beyond the farcical. Those musicians that have been (and will be) forgotten and who have influenced & contributed to the broadcast & record industries from as far back as the 50's, are reaching the age & stage where their contributions to this country's heritage & intellectual property is being pillaged by corporate squatters & the media monster; by the very people who claim that they owe their livelihoods to the music & the musicians they ignore. For example, East Coast Radio - and they are not alone; they are just a close local prime example - will take your money to promote and market a (local) music event or festival, but they cannot play the music!? Why? Because it's not what our public want to hear they say? Echoes of the SABC & Radio 5 in the 80's? So it's gone beyond a farce. It's patronizing, intimidating and I'm afraid (to say), unpatriotic! (The last vestige of a scoundrel? Whatever!) Check out who the share holders of East Coast Radio are & ask yourself - what are we doing to ourselves, our music, musicians and heritage? What has local content and musicians who have sailed away for ever got to do with all this? Let me try and explain. 3rd Ear Music has been opposing and shouting the odds about local music content on Radio & TV for years; long before the new democratic South Africa was born. Simply put: it's no use forcing the public to listen to pre-recorded South African music on Radio & TV, if the entire spectrum of 'local content' is not embraced: History, information, education & live music performance should be part and parcel of any broadcasters local content commitment. We were shouted down & embarrassed at the IBA commission in 1995 - by current broadcast shareholders. An enforced local content they cried, will help establish a music industry. Musicians like Solomon Linda would eventually get their due; Dave Tarr will not have played in vain; Denis Mpale's family would be looked after & so on? South Africans can be proud of our record industry on many levels - ironically they & the SABC back then, helped keep much of our ethnic music roots alive. The record industry is an experienced and a leading industry in Africa; a corporate success story of monumental proportions, some say; manufacturing and distributing the magic of music on record. The product! But for local musicians what does the sale of that product really mean? It's playback time, that's what I think it means. If the (conservative) sports industry, their sponsors & media can come to the transformation and development party, why does the long integrated & colourblind record industry refuse our invitations? 100% local recorded content means that no more than 200 lucky (and sometimes) talented musicians may just hit the studio & radio jackpot. For that, we who aspire to make records / CD's must be grateful. As Chris Chapman rightly says, the magic of music is in the wind. People either accept or reject it. Too true. But that can only really apply if there is a semblance of a freedom of choice. That has never been the situation in our broadcast & record industries. What have they done for the other 250,000 local musicians who will eventually become part of those 200 local content contenders? After all these years of claiming to have the interests of the music at heart why would they only focus on the first team studio & recording professionals? They know little or nothing about Dave Tarr, Solomon Linda, James Phillips, Denis Mpale, Alan Pierce and the countless other non-pop recording artists who spent their lives influencing and contributing to the enjoyment of millions. This includes the likes of Chris & the other great music media people who have tried so hard to support South African musicians. If the record industry & the SABC only want us to know about the music & musicians that they produce - we should have no problem with that. (I'm a converted, if reluctant capitalist). But then why don't they just say so? Then perhaps we can be free - through the taxpayers National Public Broadcaster?- to find other means of attracting music sponsors & investors & of developing, transforming and supporting music and musicians. It's really as simple as that. Honest! If 200 SAfrican musicians make records at any one time & if local radio plays 100% local content - as it is now being suggested & enforced - that means approx. 0.001% of our musicians who can afford to make records / CDs will benefit - and ofcourse so too will the Billion Rand a year record industry. This industry has no development and transformation plans for music or musicians, outside of these 200 odd recording artists & their own staff. The record industry employs about 5 000 people. Not one of them is a musician we hear. Yet they claim - and so too does the media, ICASA, DACST, NAC, the Station for the Well Informed and the Home of the Hits, among others - that they are the Music Industry and they are doing SAfrican music & musicians a favour? Really? If the record industry, the broadcasters and the music media were genuine about the development and transformation of a New SAfrican music industry, then where are the pensions? The disability funds? The school programmes? The workshops? Where are the royalties? It's not our business we are told. We are a record industry. Then please tell ICASA, SAfm, the NAC, the IBA and the Home of the Hits. Because they do not seem to get it! The sort of normal music infrastructure that almost every civilized country in the world has in place works in tandem with the record industries. Oz & France and Canada. The local music followers support local music, therefore a local content thing works. If all we recording musicians can do is piously claim that our obligation to the development of a music industry is to get East Coast radio & SAfm to play 50% recorded product, then we mustn't complain because we have failed to write, produce, record & market a South African song to the world, in over 33 years. It is not enough that the broadcasters only play recorded product to make us believe that we have done our bit. There is not one broadcaster in the country, that we know of, that has a local content programme outside of what they are fed by the record industry. A programme that deals with local music issues, history, education, information and live performance. (SAfm seem to be going back to their pre-1980 music agenda, presenting live local music. Good for them. But that's now!) Contemporary music - like any other art form - cannot survive without roots. We have a wonderful, if unheard & hidden, colourful and entertaining music history. Tell the story & all the other elements of a viable music industry will fall into place - without government interference & big brother intervention. Sponsors and investors will follow the market driven mainstream. Pity for the purists, but true! 50 / 100% Local recorded content? It cannot work when DJ's know more about Liverpool & New Orleans than they do about Soweto & Hillbrow 11 years after being supposedly liberated? If all we have to show for our music in 2002 is well-recorded multi-track studio productions - and we keep referring to the record & broadcast industries as our music industry - then how can we expect to be heard above the din & racket of multi-million dollar imported recorded music productions from foreign cultures; where music is NOT just a swinging hip video and musicians are NOT only pretty product fodder? Musicians are part of the content of that product and a product of that content. South Africa has enough talent & history - outside of what is available on record - to entertain, inform and educate; to make SAfricans proud and keep people around the world entertained & happy. But it has to start by looking after the roots; the source; the well-being of musicians who do not stoop to claim entitlement status - as so many recording musicians seem to demand - let the people decide: in concert! And for those who never did have the opportunity, because of our recent dark past - they need no pity, just a platform to show, contrary to PC belief, that musicians did contribute to change. So next time you musicians out there campaign for a local content drive - think about what it is that we need to put into that content & why it is ridiculous to believe that pre-recorded Local Content will fulfill the obligations to transformation and development of a music industry. We have many great living legends in this country, who have operated well outside of the record & broadcast industries all their lives and ofcourse we also have the many who have caught a lift to musician's Heaven as well. Who is Dave Tarr, Mike Smith, Solomon Linda, James Phillips, Dave Pollecutt, Lionel Abrahams, Bazil Coetzee, Dennis Mpale and so on?You'd be pleasantly surprised & equally entertained to know.
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