Group Photo
Bridgetown,
BARBADOS, November 25, 2019.
The billion-dollar Global music industry has changed rapidly over
the past 10 years alone. Some may argue that the digital age has
made it that much more accessible with social media platforms
supporting artist and new music discovery. However, the introduction
of streaming shook up the industry causing adaptation and change to
enable artists capitalise through the monetize digital music.
YouTube
along with other social media platforms has birthed stars allowing
unknown artists to reach parts of the world they couldn’t imagine
and creating a demand or following for their music long before any
record label picked them up. But how do artists get discovered
online? And how can the Caribbean musicians leverage digital
platforms to export their music globally?
These
are some of the questions the Caribbean Export Development Agency
(Caribbean Export) is attempting to answer with its Business
of Music (BOM) programme. “Understanding of the digital music
industry is imperative if an artist is going to succeed and the
Business of Music training programme aims to build the capacity of
artists, managers, producers and those involved in the music
industry” informed Allyson Francis, Services Specialist at
Caribbean Export.
Since
2017, the Agency has worked with Business Support Organisations
(BSOs) specifically the Coalition on Services Industries (CSIs) from
across the region to enable those involved in the industry to
participate in BOM sessions via the online self-learning
platform, and face to face workshops. A new dimension to this
training was the instructor led webinars. Over 120 people have
participated in these initiatives thus far and most recently, the
Agency held a two-day
workshop in collaboration with COSCAP
(Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Inc.) and the
National Cultural Foundation (NCF) and the ‘knowledge company’
Music Ally Ltd in Barbados.
The
workshop welcomed twenty-three (23) participants from nine Caribbean
countries who gained insight on topics such as the mystery of
YouTube’s algorithm and how to optimise it; how to develop a lean
and mean online campaign; how to leverage tools such as Chartmetric
amongst others. Participants also performed digital health checks to
get a better understanding of how they or their artists are viewed
online and increase their understanding of how their music can be
discovered.
“This
isn’t an age now where you can simply sit back and relax and hope
that people get involved with you and your music simply by making
music available. You’ve got to be regularly interacting with
people” stressed the CEO and Co-founder of Music Ally Ltd – Paul
Brindley.
“You
have to go where the music fan is so that means making sure that all
of those channels are absolutely properly optimised, so your Youtube,
Spotify, all the social media platforms and make sure they are all
linked together” he continued. “Make the music fans life as easy
as possible and so think through the eyes of the music fan and think,
how are they going to discover me?”
“Our
managers, musicians, artists need to leverage the tools that are out
there and do everything they can to increase their chances of being
discovered” commented Francis. “At Caribbean Export we are
committed to providing the necessary support, but we can only take
you so far.”
One
participant from Saint Lucia Akeem Anderson, artist and producer from
Onel Sound Productions summed up his experience, “The last two days
have been nothing but beneficial. The majority of us who have been
in attendance are pretty much individuals who have gotten our feet
wet already in the business and in the industry. We’re getting
some gigs, we’ve had some success, we have a little bit of
notoriety. However, the information that they’ve disseminated is
going to allow us to chisel in our characteristics and our skills,
honing in on our good qualities and strengths and maximise our
resources however limited or expansive that they may be in to
reaching not just a regional audience but also an international
audience and getting the revenue we desire for our work and our
intellectual property”.
About
Caribbean Export
Caribbean
Export is a regional export development and trade and investment
promotion organisation of the Forum of Caribbean States (CARIFORUM)
currently executing the Regional Private Sector Programme (RPSDP)
funded by the European Union under the 10th
European Development Fund (EDF) Caribbean Export’s mission is to
increase the competitiveness of Caribbean countries by providing
quality export development and trade and investment promotion
services through effective programme execution and strategic
alliances.
More
information about Caribbean Export can be found at
www.carib-export.com.
Contact: JoEllen Laryea, PR and Communications, Caribbean Export
Development Agency, Tel: +1(246) 436-0578, Fax: +1(246) 436-9999,
Email: [email protected]
