MOSES MATOVU’S WISH is to see more official patronage and support from the Uganda government in promoting local music on the international scene.
“Our bands should be invited to perform at both national and international events to expose our music. President Yoweri Museveni also ought to dance to our music at national functions to promote our bands,” Matovu, leader of Afrigo Band, says.
“A culture I don’t want to see die away is that of dancing, because it refreshes one’s mind and enlivens you physically,” he adds.
The late Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah, saw music as integral to the country’s promotion, travelling with either E.K’s Band or the Uhuru Dance Band. It is on record that Bembeya Jazz was Mali’s national band for close to 20 years.
“African leaders and those connected to the promotion of the arts in Africa have failed to develop and reassess such a valuable and renewable commodity,” Duncan Brooker observes in his article, “Old is Gold,” published in the BBC Focus on Africa magazine edition of April – June 2002.
“These days, however, music lacks official patronage and is largely unsupported by national governments. In fact, there are now so few incentives or outlets for young talented musicians to play African music that is not surprising the popularity of hip-hop and rap has long surpassed any interest in playing original African music,” Brooker writes.
The decline in Africa’s recording industry, Brooker says, has seen the withdrawal of virtually all major companies such as Decca, Phillips and EMI, and the selling off or neglecting master recordings.
“Most independent labels and studios have been forced to close down. Economic problems, high taxes, political unrest, piracy, and an exodus of talent to Europe all added to the decline in production. Companies went from producing thousands of recordings a year in the early 1970s to just a few hundred by 1980,” he says.
Formats have changed considerably in the past 50 years, from 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) shellac records, capable of holding only three minutes of music a side, to 45 rpm vinyl singles and LPs, cheap often pirated cassettes and CDs capable of holding up to two hours of music, Brooker observes. “Even today, piracy is one of the major reasons companies find it so hard to survive, as it affects the label, studio and the musicians. If they do not see a percentage of sales, then they simply cannot continue to record.”
Pirated music in Africa is rampant — some estimates by the recording industry of South Africa puts it at over 80 per cent of available music with multiple effects on the entire industry.
Consumers buy inferior quality copies, contributing to “organised crime” syndicates that are heavily involved in international music piracy.
For example, in February 2007, the Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) conducted a random survey in selected localities to establish the number of pirates using computers.
The survey found that artistes lose up to Ush3.5 billion ($20.5 million) per year to pirates. A total of 23 towns and trading centres were visited and 443 computer operators interviewed. The Random Survey on Unauthorised CD Burning showed that Kampala Central has over 120 pirates alone who sell over 20,664 CDs per month, as a result of which artistes lose Ush103 million ($60,588) per month.
Assuming that legitimate sales of music in Uganda are half of pirated sales and the total value of pirated music in Uganda is 10 times the sample, the gross revenue from music sales totals Ush52.5 billion ($30 million), says the UPRS.
Brooker, a London-based DJ who has been collecting and restoring African recordings for the past few years, laments, “Recordings of the past 50 years have largely been overlooked as a valuable reusable asset and many of these recordings are only now being rediscovered.
“Unfortunately, for many old time recordings and musicians, it is too late. Master tapes have been lost or have simply disintegrated. The chance to re-release this music has gone.
“Old music is now more marketable than ever, but the cycle of talent will be broken unless some of this fast disappearing music is saved and reintroduced to the young,” Brooker suggests. “This needs to coincide with a re-evaluation of the music curriculum in schools and the availability of funding.”
Brooker also says, “Many musicians are dying unrecognised and unappreciated as carriers of Africa’s increasingly valuable but fast disappearing musical heritage.”
Not only are they thought to account for higher than average growth and job creation, they are also vehicles of cultural identity and play an important role in fostering cultural diversity. Initiatives like Unesco’s Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity attempt to document this phenomenon and back it up with hard numbers.
UNESCO ALSO HAS A Project to establish musicians’ co-operatives across Africa. As such, the musicians are able to pool their production resources, which are individually insufficient to ensure the economic viability of a small or medium-sized business.
In Burkina Faso, a co-operative is working with the International Labour Organisation.
Festivals like Mali’s annual festival in the oasis of Essakaneis are an example of how African musicians are finding their own way to reach audiences. Aimed at promoting African and Malian music on the continent, the festival has also boosted international tourism to the region and almost 10 per cent of last year’s 6,000 visitors came from outside Africa.
Another initiative for African musicians is the DigiArts Africa Network. It was founded by Unesco and aims to increase communication between artistes, industry and educators, make music self-sustainable, use the ICT industries to support and contribute to cultural activities, and better promote African musicians in and outside Africa.
A report by the Unesco Institute for Statistics says the UK, the US and China together produced 40 per cent of the world’s cultural trade products in 2002, while Latin America and Africa together accounted for less than four per cent.