I’m sad, most of the people I first got to know as music producers are now recording artistes, and they’re among my favorite music producers too.
“Solomon” is such a beautiful record but since I got acquainted with IKON’s sound on Dr SID’s “No Long Thing”, I never thought there’d come a day when I’d have to get used to his voice as well.
It’s a similar thing with Cobhams Asuquo, for all his brilliance on the boards, I’m not quite sure what to make of his singing when he’s doing more than just providing backup vocals. This interplay can get a bit confusing, especially for those who view the art forms within music as functions for specialists and not financial experiments for generalists.
Maleek Berry has a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this jack-of-all-trading that’s going on. The ace producer has a number of solo records himself, his latest being the popular “Kontrol”. Speaking in a recent interview with “No Shade”, Maleek explained the reason why he felt the need to start performing his own records –
The structure back home in Africa is not set up for producers or songwriters to succeed. Unless you’re an artiste, unless you’re out on the forefront.
Unless you build something for yourself as an artiste where you’ve got a song that’s popping, alright cool. (Then) You could do shows for maybe the next 3 to 4 months cos you’ve got a hit… bag an endorsement.
… Now you’re looking for the next hit. Even that is not really a career. You’re kinda like holding on to your last bit of fame, then you’re holding on to more… It’s deep.
Yes sir, it is deep. In our climate, the overwhelming majority of producers sell their beats outright to an artiste or a label and with that, their birthright to the music for the proverbial porridge. The advantage to producers is that regardless of how the final song performs in the future, they can chop and clean mouth. The disadvantage however, is that if the song does go on to perform very well, they’ve relinquished the rights to the music and are left out of royalties – everything from CBRTs, to record sales, to placements in commercials. They get left out of the kind of residual income that makes their colleagues in saner music ecosystems comfortable for a long time, if not for life.
Work for-hire is done in those ecosystems, including the UK Afrobeat scene (don’t shoot me, that’s what they call it) that Maleek has become a star of. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, most producers settle for work for-hire not out of choice but because they may lack the leverage to demand that paperwork be signed with an artiste before records are made. Besides enforcing any long term financial agreement is usually headache even when documents are signed.
There are cases where an artiste becomes successful and “takes care” of his producer in retrospect but that’s usually at the artistes own discretion. There are also an increasing number of cases where producers, especially the more established ones, are able to enforce contracts that protect their long term interest or sign with companies (labels, publishing houses etc) and gain from the power of collective bargaining and muscle that standing next to someone else can offer.
LeriQ has remained with Aristokrat Records and has a publishing deal with Sony
But these instances are few and far between, the other types of agreement, the Jacob-Esau agreements are still the norm. The most obvious reason why this is still the case is that our community of producers (and songwriters) is too fragmented and too poorly represented to protect themselves, and there’s enough blame to go around for this. Producers should take some blame for not banding together and taking their destiny into their own hands, like DJ Jimmy Jatt and DJ’s have done with DJAN, but the bodies that currently represent them are also at fault.
In America, producers and songwriters have ASCAP and BMI to protect their interest. In the UK, there’s the Music Producers Guild (MPG). In Nigeria, we (are supposed to) have the Music Producers And Marketers Association of Nigeria – MUPMAN and you can question whether that body is pulling its weight because left to COSON, it’s obvious that 1.) The organization (COSON) is too focused on royalty collection, because that’s their core mandate anyway 2) royalty collection mechanisms in Nigeria are skewed in favor of the artiste and their label.
Listen to COSON’s president, Chief Tony Okoroji, inadvertently admit to that much in an interview with Channels TV –
If the producer is in a strong position, and his contribution is fundamental. The producer can ensure that he has a contract which he gives him a part of the copyright
If he does not, he would have done what is called work for-hire, in which case, he was paid some money and has no claim to the copyright.
…
If a producer or an arranger or an instrumentalist or whoever wants a share in the copyright, the only way he can get it is by an agreement, a contract. He can’t get it simply by legislation.
“Strong position”, “fundamental”. Those words infruriated OJB Jezreel, of now blessed memory, his response to Chief Okoroji’s explanation was stiff –
Much respect to COSON, when he (Chief Okoroji) said the producer should earn if his work is “fundamental”, I’m trying to understand what that means. You’re dancing to my beat and the artiste is singing on it and you’re asking me whether it’s fundamental?
There’s a law in Germany right now – whether you even sign a contract or you don’t sign a contract, once a person can prove that it’s his song, even if you don’t have a contract, there’s a standard thing he must earn. It is something that is there. Even in the COSON contract, it’s written there – the producer slot, the composer slot is there…
And guess what’s strange? Sometimes, even the people there (in COSON) will start advising you, the artiste, bone that place just sign your name over it.
The interview was conducted 2 years ago, but some of the things OJB talked about are still manifesting themselves till this day and will continue to do so, as long as nothing changes. The veteran producer then went on to give his own explanation as to why most of his colleagues take matters, and the microphone, into their own hands.
It (the skewed practices) gets to the producers… You find that a lot of producers are grabbing the mic right now, because they’re like – what’s going on?
What’s going on is that everybody just wants an opportunity to earn good money from the work they do. What’s going on is that, if they chose to, producers need to have the option to remain behind the boards and perfect the sounds we love to hear without the fear that poverty and anonymity will catch up with them in their seats.
At a ceremony, a masquerade is often the toast of the event, the center of attention. In some cultures, masquerades have an accomplice that collects money on their behalf as they move around. However, if the instrumentalists that make the music that the masquerade dances to feels like they aren’t getting their fair share of the proceeds from their collective effort, guess who’ll turn up at the market square next week to try out their new dance moves?