Over years, the music industry has grown to be one of the most essential component of the country’s economy. With artists and deejays managing to sell equitable figures of their music and or/ any other music related products. Debatably, abundant for them to make a living and serve as bread winners for their families, respectively.
However, most recently there seems to be a growing trend of impertinence within the industry itself. This is seen in both the artists, and a number of deejays loathing behaviour of; overdosing in alcohol before their stage performance; indulging in unsafe sex with multiple women; and the ever increasing excessive intake of drugs, and mind you, these are just to name a few. Desolately still, it appears as though the reason behind this all is just to wear the ‘swag’ tag/ for street acclaim.
Arguably, a good figure of deejays and artists has forgotten their originality. I say this, because, as of late most of the content rotating both in our local radio stations and TV programmes has more of the American culture and less of the African element. A perfect example that spring to mind is ‘The Game’ concert he had a few years ago when he was in the country, in 2008 to be exact. Many will recall that when he performed he was rather overdosed in either weed/ alcohol and many of the young and upcoming artists identified that as a cool element and because he is ‘The Game’, miserably, many of the youth are now adapting that to be a cool/ ‘swag’ dripping trend.
Morally, we as South Africans, are custom grown and I don’t believe or know of any culture that promote such behaviour, however, because we now striving to be the cool/ ‘swag’ having artists we tend to divert from our African tradition of respect and morality.
The question hereof, is “where do we draw a line”? For, as far as I know, being cool and having ‘swag’ has nothing to do with reckless behaviour. Conversely, if we the fore leaders of this industry are not educating these upcoming artists and deejays who are we then expecting to teach these talented young individuals, who day in, day out lose their originality and adapt to the American culture?
Collectively, we, the head leaders of the industry have a responsibility to invest time to teach these young individuals how to package themselves as artists. Open for room for discussion, many of you will agree with me that making it into the industry is not any easy task nor is it a difficulty one either. Mind you, many of these young up and coming artists don’t make it into the industry not because they don’t have talent but it’s because they lack respect and originality and moreover the entire package of an artist.
Having said that, personally, I know no event organiser/promoter of a big event (allow me to call it that, big event) that will want to book an artist that will perform on stage whilst drunk or intoxicated. That said if we, music lovers and business associate within the music industry want to retain respect from other economic active industries or the entire society as a whole. We have to act responsible and package ourselves as morally and respectful individuals. Furthermore, serve as channels of education to the next generation.
That said, I doubt there’s a point in us in beefing and battling if we ourselves have lost our originality. Instead, we have to come together as one and cultivate a respectable industry that our parents will have faith in. I say ‘parents’ because you will agree with me that many of our parents/ old folks don’t recognise music (hip hop in particular) as a profession and that is because we ourselves, as artists and deejays are not respecting the industry. As a result many people end up joining the field because they think it’s the ‘in thing’ and not because they have talent or even love music to begin with.
I’m neither a professor nor a doctor of hip hop. However, this is just to alarm you as an individual to start inviting change into your life. Mind you, over years, I’ve heard more battle records as opposed to love songs brewed from our genre of music (rap/hip hop). Which itself needs to be broken down, for the reason that lately, many confuse hip hop to rap and or/ the other way round. However, that’s another topic of discussion for another day, for now let me not divert from the purpose of this note.
Personally, I believe working collectively we can resurrect the ‘dying industry’ and further, preserve it for the next generation. So, if you are at a position of teaching, do exactly that, and if you are at a position of learning, research as far as possible. Mind you being an mcee/ rap artist doesn’t mean ignorance, in fact it means educating the society through your music and I doubt you can educate if you, yourself don’t know the fundamentals or have lost your originality.
All in all, it’s all love/ I write to instil in you, a thought for change/, and most importantly, I write with faith that we break barriers of misconception. And as stated in the introduction, I write in my own capacity, in way, I stand to be corrected. Bearing in mind that both positive and negative criticism are essential for any growth for that matter.
NB: I write in my own my capacity as a music lover and a concerned hip hop scholar, teacher, house deejay, and an entertainment label (1685 entertainment) marketing manager.
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