Are South African Musicians Fulfilled?

I’m having a hard time resisting underhanded shock-tactics, flat out deceit and controversy-stirring in order to do my job. My job is creating a live entertainment scene. This requires picking up on leads, various posts from social networking sites, scouring South African blogs for anything new and worth mentioning. From there, I’ll stick it up on the site, and watch the stats. I still see no connection between the online presence of a gig and the turnout on the night. This bothers me.

Just another of many local bands who play for free.

Bands used to be what pulled people in. But the key started to change, and slick, faceless, festival-type parties began papering meter-boxes all over our cities, and representing the groups of musicians however they saw fit. MyCokeFest. The TRL Radio Tour. 5fm. Now instead of putting on their make-up for the show, the show is their make-up. Bands are brands. We’re being fed ‘rock’, ‘hip hop’ and ‘jazz’ like they’re single-serving slices of pizza off a menu for the unimaginitive.

I have a personal problem with this. Forgive me; I don’t mean to complain, but rather to observe.

We’re consumers of music, no longer listeners. Like rabid ants we share each other’s mp3s (and it’s a myth that smart bands mind people doing it) but we’ve stopped listening. The average mp3 collection has been dumbed down into such broad categories – rock, hip hop, jazz, etc – that now we just sedately nod and tell our friends, ‘I like indie rock.’ And this is the reason that South African musicians are copying everyone else instead of cultivating new ideas — new musical ideas particular to this time and place, yes, but also new ways of releasing music, new, inspiring ways of engaging with the people. Ideas specific to this place and time.

This place and time, in case you’ve been buried in the Wii, is a rural place with bubbles of commerce and communication. In the words of Radiohead, you’re living in a fantasy.

Tastes differ, yeah, and sometimes we’d rather stick to what we know. Nothing wrong with unoriginal original music. Not everyone does it for the same reasons. I just think most South African artists are creatively stagnant, in my environment at the least. It’s hard enough for me to have some sense of what’s going on by trying to tap it from a DSL line, but when I’m convinced that there’s nothing left to tap, I don’t know where to turn!

So, here are my questions to the struggling or successful musicians amongst you, whoever you are, whatever you play. Please answer whichever you like. Honestly, or take the piss, whatever. It started as a reply to a post on Facebook. Then, it became a free-flowing review of what it’s like sitting in this chair every day publicising, promoting, producing, performing and progressing South African music. Then it became a call to action. Comments below, please.

Comments below…

by pravda23
[This post is a curtailed version of the much longer and more direct one, entitled 'Radio Will Kill The Internet Star'. Check it out here.]

“The average mp3 collection has been dumbed down into such broad categories – rock, hip hop, jazz – that now we just sedately nod and tell our friends, ‘I like indie rock.’”

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