06 Feb 2020

Botswana’s seasoned music promoter, Seabelo Modibe has attributed the decline in music creation to the lack of unprofessionalism among local musicians.

He revealed this in an interview on February 5, incited by a notable decline in the release of album and single, a trend affecting even some of the established artistes in the country. 

Save for just a handful, most of the new material has been courtesy of industry’s inexperienced newbies trying to make it into the dog eat dog industry.

While it’s not easy to penetrate the market, there had been some beckoning opportunities to help the artistes reach a wide market such as the Channel O, a Dstv channel that offers artistes a platform to showcase their talent, an opportunity that local artistes have not exploited.

Recently Black Entertainment Television (BET), Dstv channel for celebrating blackness and sister channel Mtvbase were part of Botswana International Music Conference (BIMC) and  lured local musicians to use them as platforms to reach the desired market.

The founder of BIMC, Modibe said despite Botswana’s vastness and talent there were only less than 10 artistes who treat their music business professionally and show that it was their only source of income while the rest were in it for short-lived fame.

“The recent BIMC saw a number of artistes who attempted to submit their materials, but their works lacked substance. Some submitted materials where below par while some where submitted on wrong formats.

The artistes did not have profile, no lyrical content for songs, no names for recording studios, producers and not even to make follow up in regard to their work,” he said.

He said such attitude was disturbing given that artistes did not have anything to their names.

“It has been years and this industry is not moving in terms of making strides as a contributor to the country’s GDP and lack of professionalism being a major setback,” he added. 

He said platforms had been created where artistes and other industry professionals could mingle and enhance the industry, and said it was now left for artistes to take the baton and run along to put themselves in the global market.

He said the music industry in Botswana was faced with many challenges from a small domestic market, lack of proper facilities for hosting major international and local events, lack of international and regional exposure of music practitioners and poor regulatory framework.

Modibe said as a global channel, BET was well placed to expose Botswana talent globally and give local talent an opportunity to share and expand on their artistic profiles.

Presently the channel is well vested in Nigeria and South Africa, and it is expanding to the rest of the continent and local artistes could use such opportunities to tap into the market and build their content.

The seasoned promoter said it was their desire as industry facilitators to have hungry and zealous artistes that yearn to share stage with the world’s best.  The quality of work and how they manage themselves is all that it takes to attract patrons, be it sponsors or consumers.ENDS