Malawi’s music has some subsets within its
wholeness. Within these subgenres we have its influential players. If I mention
Black Missionaries for example, then what will quickly come to mind is that
these can be lumped together, in their own subgenre, with Wailing Brothers and
Lilongwe based Soul Raiders.
If I mention Joseph Nkasa, then Thomas Chibade,
Moses Makawa etc will join this subset. The same way Mlaka Maliro and Billy
Kaunda will form one subset.
Most of these are dominated by male artists. But
while the other subsets have had female players coming in and going the Nkasa,
Chibade, Makawa subset has rarely entertained any female challenger, until
Stella Mwanza came on the scene.
Tracks like Musandilaule, Chidodo,
Chimbayambaya, Mdanitsa, just to mention a few took the music world of Nkasa’s ilk
by storm.
Her
music and music videos were being produced by Harry Kazembe of Rhem Records as
well as John Nguluwe of MC Studios Entertainment. These have produced all the
greats including Skeffa Chimoto and Lucius Banda.
Now
Stella Mwanza has gone into hibernation and perhaps like Mirrel Nkhoma she will
never come back.
There
was a time when she had a manager, someone whom she entrusted to manage her
career but it all ended up into a disastrous ending.
According
to a write up by lawyers of creative arts, there are four different kinds of
representatives that may represent recording artists, performers, and
songwriters in the music industry and these are personal managers, agents,
business managers, and attorneys.
Of course I know with the Malawi scenario none of
these are there to show the way. One other female artist that I know relies
heavily on her manager is Sangie. Like Stella in her time, she is never allowed
to speak or strike deals only when her manager says so.
Now back to the said write up, it says Personal
Managers are there to advise and counsel the artist on
virtually all aspects of the artist’s career.
Thus
the duties of a personal manager may include dealing with the artist’s
publicity, public relations and advertising; assisting in the selection of the
artist’s material; devising plans for the artist’s long term career
development; choosing the artist’s booking agent, road manager, lawyer,
accountant etal and overseeing the artist’s relations with each of them.
The
personal manager’s other duty is also to provide counseling to the artist on
what types of employment to accept; in some instances, acting as a liaison
between the artist and the artist’s record company.
For
all this to work personal managers are usually paid a commission of 15 percent
to 25 percent of the artist’s gross receipts from all of the artist’s
activities in the entertainment industry (recording contacts, publishing
contracts, endorsements, television and movie work, etc).
Of
course this commission, which may increase depending upon the artist’s success,
is in addition to reimbursement of the personal manager’s travel and
out-of-pocket expenses incurred in representing the artist.
If
you check the above duties, there is no where written impregnating or sleeping
with the artist because in the music industry worldwide this often happens and
to an extent end up killing the budding career.
Now
when you look at how, for example, Miracle Chinga is struggling at the moment,
would you say she has a personal manager that is looking-glass to after her affairs? Are
we going to be surprised if two years down the road she will still remain a
shadow of her late mother?
Now if the music industry is not going to start reorganising itself and begin validating who becomes a manager of our artists, we are going to end up with a lot of Stella Mwanzas in this world.
1 comment:
Very pathetic. But maybe sometimes it's also to do with the musicians themselves. Maybe they should realise and wake up, that they are the boss and can fire their managers when things are not going on very well.
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