Covid-19 brings mixed fortunes for musicians

Singers and musicians will have different tales once Covid-19 pandemic is gone.

Local reggae rulers, The Black Missionaries and soldier Lucius Banda and the Zembani Band are hardest hit, considering that their biggest revenue haul comes from live performances. These come in form on corporate or self-arranged events across the country and sometimes across the borders, especially in South Africa and Europe.

Before, this was never the route that was commonly travelled to rake in revenue for musicians because they were making sales through the OG Issah outlets that were available then.

With the advent of ICT that consequently led into piracy, many artists cried foul and without any compensation of note, this led to opening up of so many avenues to sell and market music-wares, including live shows and digital sales.

The coming in of mobile phone connectivity first brought with it, the caller tune initiative, before smartphones offered internet access to marketing and selling music.

Just with some downloads and buying through different online platform, it opened up the floodgates for most international acts. Yes, in Malawi as well, more artists have invested in these markets more, although it is yet to be as lucrative as is the case in the West.

Malawi artists have even taken advantage of mobile phone transactions through mobile banking and mobile money technology and it surely and slowly is becoming the way to go, especially now that Covid-19 pandemic has come amidst us.

Elli Njuchi, released Extended Playlist (EP) titled The Book of Z. The same was the case with local hip-hop stalwart Phyzix, who has also released an EP called Gamba Season.

In just three days, Phyzix made over K1 million in digital sales using digital platform and more money is still trickling in. The same is the case with Elli Njuchi who has also made over a million after a week or so. If truth be told, without Covid-19 this kind of sale was going to be impossible in a normal sales day.

Others that have also decided to take advantage of the situation are artists like newly branded Nyago, formerly Trizah Titus, as well as Joe Kellz who have held live stream concerts through among other digital spaces, their Facebook pages.  

It is, therefore, disheartening that the Covid-19 pandemic has buried the big guns like Ma Blacks and Lucius Banda. It is high time management teams of these musical outfits started thinking outside the box and took advantage on the internet to not only make money but also stay in touch with their fans through live streaming performances.

While other artists continue to pray and hope for a miraculous end of the pandemic, other are finding ways and means of surviving and thriving.

I hope one day, sooner than later artists can learn from this situation to always have more than one means of selling one’s creativity.

Holding shows is good but it surely should not be the only way.

How many artists in Malawi have YouTube and Facebook channels to interact with their fans?

How many have built a fanbase on social media?

What about selling branded materials like T-shirts, caps and coffee mags just to name a few?

If you study the trend of international artists, you will notice that they do not only rely on one thing. They may do music as their only bread and butter but they serve the same music in different forms to different audiences.

Let this Covid-19 be an experience to wake up our artists to think outside the box.

Otherwise we cannot wait to see the majority of our artists back on stage as soon as this nightmare is over!