By Kerry-Anne Allerston
HOW did I even get here? I don’t mean South Africa and I don’t wanna chat about how I came to be on this strange little planet of ours. How did I get where I am today? A series of very interesting events and crazy decisions led me to start working in the music industry with some of the most beautiful, most complicated and most talented people in the world. Or so I believe, anyway.
We can unpack that more another day but for now I want to talk about the curious case of the South African musician and how on earth they’re supposed to make a career out of making music and making our lives sound better when they’re playing for free half the time and for the other half everyone and their dog wants to be on the guest list.
It’s already a struggle getting most of us off our couches to brave our pothole-filled roads and the drivers on said roads, as half of them wake up most days channelling their inner Vin Diesel and think they need to either drive double the speed limit because they’re trying to escape a very threatening assassin, or think they can 100% do seven things at once.
The rest should absolutely be tested for colour blindness because I think that’s a real condition for many South Africans who can’t tell the difference between red, orange and green. I find this whole thing quite bizarre because people with protanopia are unable to perceive any red lights while those with deuteranopia are unable to perceive green lights and those with tritanopia cannot see blue lights.
There are those who cannot actually see red and green and these people supposedly see blurry greens where blues and yellows are the clearest. So why leave home when half the country suffers from one of these conditions?
I digress. Back to the music. These poor girls and guys are also up against the actors we are addicted to watching on our tellies at home and we are spoilt for choice if we even have just one or two of said streaming options, never mind all of them.
So, the average muso needs to pay for rehearsal space, have these rehearsals every week, write new music, put out new content, shoot music videos, print flyers, pay designers to create mind-blowing artwork for each and every show to catch the attention of the fans on socials and then pay for boosted posts on platforms that don’t even reach the audience they’re trying to target, even though they are specifically choosing who they’d like to reach! Just the other week our very own president Cyril Ramaphosa sent me a friend request right after Thor did. True story! What’s a girl to do, especially if I could only choose one or the other. So tricky!
There I go veering off topic again. So, long story long. Back to how our musicians are supposed to live off hugs and ‘exposure’ alone. Well, they can’t - and don’t even get me started on the poor live venue owners out there.
These lovely, crazy, beautiful superstars are creating the playlists of our lives and a lot of you even play their songs as the first songs at your weddings and all those other special occasions, so let’s thank them by buying more merchandise, asking for less guest lists and getting a designated Bob to drive us to our next gig. And every week someone else can be the designated sober Sam, so nobody has to be the Vin (or the Angelina in Gone in 60 seconds).
There are musicians out there who have made it and they didn’t get there by chance. They put in the hard work and the time and they are (mostly) very talented individuals but they are the 5%. Let’s give the 95% a hand where we can.
Streaming the music, sharing their posts and following these crazy cats on their social media all helps especially if you cannot help in other ways. Support Local. They’re as good if not better than the international musos they’re going up against.